
Class ^ 7^0 y 
Book /^f2 



Gopyiight]^°. 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



3Bg (5eo, Ibaven Putnam 



Authors and Their Public in Ancient Times. — A sketch 
of literary conditions, and of the relations with the public 
of literary producers, from the earliest tiuies to the fall of 
the Roman Empire. 
Third Edition, revised. 12°, gilt top, . net, $1.50 

Books and Their Makers during the Middle Ages. — A 

study of the conditions of the production and distribution of 

literature, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the close 

of the Seventeenth Century. 

Two vols., sold separately. 8°, gilt tops. Each . $2.50 

Volume I., 476-1600. 

Volume II., 1 500-1 709. 

The Question of Copyright. — Comprising the text of the 
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of the World. Third edition, revised, with Additions, and 
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Influence upon the Production and Distribution of 
Literature.— A Study of the History of the Prohibitory and 
Expurgatory Indexes, Together with Some Consideration of 
the Effects of Protestant Censorship and of Censorship by 
the State. 

Two volumes, &vo. Uniform with *' Books and Their 
Makers. " Each .... net, $2.50 

Abraham Lincoln, the People's Leader in the Strug- 
gle for National Existence. 
Crown 8vo. With Portrait. 



Abraham Lincoln 

The People's Leader in the Struggle for 
National Existence 



By 
George Haven Putnam, Litt. D, 

Author of " Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages," 
" The Censorship of the Church," etc 



With the above is included the speech delivered by Lincoln in 
New York, February 27, 1860; with an introduction by 
Charles C. Nott, late Chief Justice of the Court of Claims, 
and annotations by Judge Nott and by Cephas Brainerd of 
the New York Bar. 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 

tTbe "RnicKerbocfter ipcess 

1909 



•i ttr'nolr' -^ nj i 






Copyright, 1909 



GEORGE HAVEN PUTNAM 



Vbe Vtnicfterbocliec iprees, -new Koct 



(CLA2n305:.. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

The twelfth of February, 1909, was the hun- 
dredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham 
Lincoln. In New York, as in other cities and 
towns throughout the Union, the day was devoted 
to commemoration exercises, and even in the 
South, in centres like Atlanta (the capture of 
which in 1864 had indicated the collapse of the 
cause of the Confederacy), representative South- 
erners gave their testimony to the life and charac- 
ter of the great American. 

The Committee in charge of the commemoration 
in New York arranged for a series of addresses 
to be given to the people of the city and it was 
my privilege to be selected as one of the speakers. 
It was an indication of the rapid passing away 
of the generation which had had to do with the 
events of the War, that the list of orators, forty- 
six in all, included only four men who had ever 
seen the hero whose life and character they were 
describing. 

In writing out later, primarily for the informa- 
tion of children and grandchildren, my own 



IV Introductory Note 

address (which had been delivered without notes) , 
I found myself so far absorbed in the interest of 
the subject and in the recollections of the War 
period, that I was impelled to expand the paper 
so that it should present a more comprehensive 
study of the career and character of Lincoln 
than it had been possible to attempt within the 
compass of an hour's talk, and should include 
also references, in outline, to the constitutional 
struggle that had preceded the contest and to the 
chief events of the War itself with which the great 
War President had been most directly concerned. 
The monograph, therefore, while in the form of 
an essay or historical sketch, retains in certain 
portions the character of the spoken address with 
which it originated. 

It is now brought into print in the hope that 
it may be found of interest for certain readers 
of the younger generation and may serve as an 
incentive to the reading of the fuller histories 
of the War period, and particularly of the best 
of the biographies of the great American whom 
we honour as the People's leader. 

I have been fortunate enough to secure (only, 
however, after this monograph had been put into 
type) a copy of the pamphlet printed in Septem- 
ber, i860, by the Young Men's Republican Union 



Introductory Note v 

of New York, in which is presented the text, as 
revised by the speaker, of the address given by 
Lincoln at the Cooper Institute in February, — ^the 
address which made him President. 

This edition of the speech, prepared for use in 
the Presidential campaign, contains a series of 
historical annotations by Cephas Brainerd of the 
New York Bar and Charles C. Nott, who later 
rendered further distinguished service to his 
country as Colonel of the 1 76th Regiment, N. Y, S. 
Volunteers, and (after the close of the War) as 
chief justice of the Court of Claims. 

These young lawyers (not yet leaders of the 
Bar) appear to have realised at once that the 
speech was to constitute the platform upon which 
the issues of the Presidential election were to be 
contested. Not being prophets, they were, of 
course, not in a position to know that the same 
statements were to represent the contentions 
of the North upon which the Civil War was fought 
out. 

I am able to include, with the scholarly notes of 
the two lawyers, a valuable introduction to the 
speech, written (as late as February, 1908) by 
Judge Nott; together with certain letters which 
in February, i860, passed between him (as the 
representative of the Committee) and Mr. Lincoln. 



vi Abraham Lincoln 

The introduction and the letters have never be- 
fore been published, and (as is the case also with 
the material of the notes) are now in print only 
in the present volume. 

I judge, therefore, that I may be doing a service 
to the siurvivors of the generation of i860 and 
also to the generations that have grown up since 
the War, by utilising the occasion of the publica- 
tion of my own little monograph for the reprinting 
of these notes in a form for permanent preserva- 
tion and for reference on the part of students of 
the history of the Republic. 

G. H. P. 
New York, April 2, 1909. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. The Evolution of the Man . . i 

II. Work at the Bar and Entrance into 

Politics . . . . .12 

III. The Fight against the Extension of 

Slavery ..... 29 

IV. Lincoln as President Organises the 

People for the Maintenance of 
National Existence • • • 53 

V. The Beginning of the Civil War . 76 

VI. The Dark Days OF 1862 . , .111 

VII. The Third and Crucial Year of the 

War ...... 130 

VIII. The Final Campaign . . .149 

IX. Lincoln's Task Ended . . .179 

Appendix — Lincoln's Cooper Institute 
Address: 

Introductory Note .... 207 

Correspondence with Robert Lin- 
coln, Nott, and Brainerd . . 209 

Introduction . . . . -215 

Correspondence with Lincoln . . 223 

Title Page OF Original Issue . .231 



viii Contents 

Appendix — Continued : 

PAGB 

Officers op the Republican Union . 232 

Preface to the Lincoln Address . 233 

The Cooper Institute Address . 235 

Notes ...... 267 

Index ....... 289 



Abraham Lincoln 



Abraham Lincoln 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN 

On the twelfth of February, 1909, the hun- 
dredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham 
Lincoln, Americans gathered together, through- 
out the entire country, to honour the memory 
of a great American, one who may come to be 
accepted as the greatest of Americans. It was 
in every way fitting that this honour should be 
rendered to Abraham Lincoln and that, on such 
commemoration day, his fellow-citizens should 
not fail to bear also in honoured memory the 
thousands of other good Americans who like 
Lincoln gave their lives for their country and 
without whose loyal devotion Lincoln's leadership 
would have been in vain. 

The chief purpose, however, as I understand, 
of a memorial service is not so much to glorify 



2 Abraham Lincoln 

the dead as to enlighten and inspire the living. 
We borrow the thought of his own Gettysburg 
address (so eloquent in its exquisite simplicity) 
when we say that no words of ours can add any 
glory to the name of Abraham Lincoln. His 
work is accomplished. His fame is secure. It is 
for us, his fellow-citizens, for the older men who 
had personal touch with the great struggle in which 
Lincoln was the nation's leader, for the younger 
men who have grown up in the generation since 
the War, and for the children by whom are to 
be handed down through the new century the 
great traditions of the Republic, to secure from 
the life and character of our great leader incentive, 
illumination, and inspiration to good citizenship, 
in order that Lincoln and his fellow-martyrs 
shall not have died in vain. 

It is possible within the limits of this paper 
simply to touch upon the chief events and expe- 
riences in Lincoln's life. It has been my endeav- 
our to select those that were the most important 
in the forming or in the expression of his character. 
The term "forming" is, however, not adequate 
to indicate the development of a personality 
like Lincoln's. We rather think of his sturdy 
character as having been forged into its final 
form through the fiery furnace of fierce struggle, 



The Evolution of the Man 3 

as hammered out under the blows of difficulties 
and disasters, and as pressed beneath the weight 
of the nation's burdens, until was at last produced 
the finely tempered nature of the man we know, 
the Lincoln of history, that exquisite combination 
of sweetness of nature and strength of character. 
The type is described in Schiller's Song of the 
Founding of the Bell : 

Denn, wo das strenge mit dem zarten, 
Wo mildes sich und starkes paarten, 
Da giebt es einen guten Klang, 

There is a tendency to apply the term "miracu- 
lous" to the career of every hero, and in a sense 
such description is, of course, true. The life of 
every man, however restricted its range, is some- 
thing of a miracle ; but the course of a single life, 
like that of humanity, is assuredly based on a 
development that proceeds from a series of causa- 
tions. Holmes says that the education of a man 
begins two centuries before his birth. We may 
recall in this connection that Lincoln came of 
good stock. It is true that his parents belonged 
to the class of poor whites; but the Lincoln 
family can be traced from an eastern county 
of England (we might hope for the purpose of 
genealogical harmony that the county was Lin- 



4 Abraham Lincoln 

colnshire) to Hingham in Massachusetts, and by 
way of Pennsylvania and Virginia to Kentucky. 
The grandfather of our Abraham was killed, 
while working in his field on the Kentucky farm, 
by predatory Indians shooting from the cover 
of the dense forest. Abraham's father, Thomas, 
at that time a boy, was working in the field where 
his father was murdered. Such an incident in 
Kentucky simply repeated what had been going 
on just a century before in Massachusetts, at 
Deerfield and at dozens of other settlements 
on the edge of the great forest which was the 
home of the Indians. During the hundred years, 
the frontier of the white man's domain had been 
moved a thousand miles to the south-west and, 
as ever, there was still friction at the point of 
contact. 

The record of the boyhood of our Lincoln has 
been told in dozens of forms and in hundreds 
of monographs. We know of the simplicity, of 
the penury, of the family life in the little one- 
roomed log hut that formed the home for the 
first ten years of Abraham's life. We know of his 
little group of books collected with toil and self- 
sacrifice. The series, after some years of stren- 
uous labour, comprised the Bible, ^Esop's Fables, 
a tattered copy of Euclid's Geometry, and Weems's 



The Evolution of the Man 5 

Life of Washington. The Euclid he had secured 
as a great prize from the son of a neighbour- 
ing farmer. Abraham had asked the boy the 
meaning of the word "demonstrate. " His friend 
said that he did not himself know, but that 
he knew the word was in a book which he had 
at school, and he hunted up the Euclid. After 
some bargaining, the Euclid came into Abra- 
ham's possession. In accordance with his prac- 
tice, the whole contents were learned by heart. 
Abraham's later opponents at the Bar or in 
political discussion came to realise that he under- 
stood the meaning of the word "demonstrate." 
In fact, references to specific problems of Euclid 
occurred in some of his earlier speeches at the 
Bar. 

A year or more later, when the Lincoln family 
had crossed the river to Indiana, there was added 
to the "library" a copy of the revised Statutes 
of the State. The Weems's Washington had been 
borrowed by Lincoln from a neighbouring farmer. 
The boy kept it at night under his pillow, and 
on the occasion of a storm, the water blew in 
through the chinks of the logs that formed the 
wall of the cabin, drenching the pillow and the 
head of the boy (a small matter in itself) and 
wetting and almost spoiling the book. This was 



6 Abraham Lincoln 

a grave misfortune. Lincoln took his damaged 
volume to the owner and asked how he could 
make payment for the loss. It was arranged 
that the boy should put in three days' work shuck- 
ing corn on the farm. "Will that work pay for 
the book or only for the damage?" asked the 
boy. It was agreed that the labour of three days 
should be considered sufficient for the purchase 
of the book. 

The text of this biography and the words of 
each valued volume in the little "library" were 
absorbed into the memory of the reader. It was 
his practice when going into the field for work, 
to take with him written-out paragraphs from 
the book that he had at the moment in mind and 
to repeat these paragraphs between the various 
chores or between the wood-chopping until every 
page was committed by heart. Paper was scarce 
and dear and for the boy unattainable. He 
used for his copying bits of board shaved smooth 
with his jack-knife. This material had the ad- 
vantage that when the task of one day had been 
mastered, a little labour with the jack-knife 
prepared the surface of the board for the work 
of the next day. As I read this incident in Lin- 
coln's boyhood, I was reminded of an experience 
of my own in Louisiana. It happened frequently 



The Evolution of the Man 7 

during the campaign of 1863 that our supplies 
were cut off through the capture of our waggon 
trains by that active Confederate commander, 
General Taylor. More than once, we were short 
of provisions, and, in one instance, a supply of 
stationery for which the adjutants of the brigade 
had been waiting, was carried off to serve the 
needs of our opponents. We tore down a con- 
venient and unnecessary shed and utilised from 
the roof the shingles, the clean portions of which 
made an admirable substitute for paper. For 
some days, the morning reports of the brigade 
were filed on shingles. 

Lincoln's work as a farm-hand was varied by 
two trips down the river to New Orleans. The 
opportunity had been offered to the young man 
by the neighbouring store-keeper. Gentry, to 
take part in the trip of a flat-boat which carried 
the produce of the county to New Orleans, to be 
there sold in exchange for sugar or rum. Lincoln 
was, at the time of these trips, already familiar 
with certain of the aspects and conditions of 
slavery, but the inspection of the slave-market 
in New Orleans stamped upon his sensitive im- 
agination a fresh and more sombre picture, and 
made a lasting impression of the iniquity and 
horror of the institution. From the time of his 



8 Abraham Lincoln 

early manhood, Lincoln hated slavery. What 
was exceptional, however, in his state of mind 
was that, while abominating the institution, he 
was able to give a sympathetic imderstanding 
to the opinions and to the prejudices of the 
slave-owners. In all his long fight against slavery 
as the curse both of the white and of the black, 
and as the great obstacle to the natural and whole- 
some development of the nation, we do not at 
any time find a trace of bitterness against the 
men of the South who were endeavouring to 
maintain and to extend the system. 

It was of essential importance for the develop- 
ment of Lincoln as a political leader, first for his 
State, and later in the contest that became 
national, that he should have possessed an under- 
standing, which was denied to many of the anti- 
slavery leaders, of the actual nature, character, 
and purpose of the men against whom he was 
contending. It became of larger importance when 
Lincoln was directing from Washington the policy 
of the national administration that he should have 
a sympathetic knowledge of the problems of 
the men of the Border States who with the 
outbreak of the War had been placed in a position 
of exceptional difBculty, and that he should have 
secured and retained the confidence of these 



The Evolution of the Man 9 

men. It seems probable that if the War President 
had been a man of Northern birth and Northern 
prejudices, if he had been one to whom the wider, 
the more patient and sympathetic view of these 
problems had been impossible or difficult, the 
Border States could not have been saved to the 
Union. It is probable that the support given to 
the cause of the North by the sixty thousand or 
seventy thousand loyal recruits from Missouri, 
Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, and Virginia, 
may even have proved the deciding factor in 
turning the tide of events. The nation's leader 
for the struggle seems to have been secured through 
a process of natural selection as had been the case 
a century earlier with Washington. We may 
recall that Washington died but ten years before 
Lincoln was born; and from the fact that each 
leader was at hand when the demand came for his 
service, and when without such service the nation 
might have been pressed to destruction, we may 
grasp the hope that in time of need the nation 
will always be provided with the leader who can 
meet the requirement. 

After Lincoln returned from New Orleans, he 
secured employment for a time in the grocery or 
general store of Gentry, and when he was twenty- 
two years of age, he went into business with a 



lo Abraham Lincoln 

partner, some twenty years older than himself, 
in carrying on such a store. He had so impressed 
himself upon the confidence of his neighbours 
that, while he was absolutely without resources, 
there was no difficulty in his borrowing the money 
required for his share of the capital. The under- 
taking did not prove a success. Lincoln had 
no business experience and no particular business 
capacity, while his partner proved to be untrust- 
worthy. The partner decamped, leaving Lincoln 
to close up the business and to take the respon- 
sibility for the joint indebtedness. It was seven- 
teen years before Lincoln was able, from his 
modest earnings as a lawyer, to clear off this 
indebtedness. The debt became outlawed in 
six years' time but this could not affect Lincoln's 
sense of the obligation. After the failure of 
the business, Lincoln secured work as county 
surveyor. In this, he was following the example 
of his predecessor Washington, with whose career 
as a surveyor the youngster who knew Weems's 
biography by heart, was of course familiar. 
His new occupation took him through the county 
and brought him into personal relations with a 
much wider circle than he had known in the 
village of New Salem, and in his case, the personal 
relation counted for much ; the history shows that 



The Evolution of the Man 1 1 

no one who knew Lincoln failed to be attracted 
by him or to be impressed with the fullest confi- 
dence in the man's integrity of purpose and of 
action. 



II 

WORK AT THE BAR AND ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS 

In 1834, when he was twenty-five years old, 
Lincoln made his first entrance into politics, 
presenting himself as candidate for the Assembly. 
His defeat was not without compensations; he 
secured in his own village or township, New Salem, 
no less than 208 out of the 211 votes cast. This 
prophet had honour with those who knew him. 
Two years later, he tried again and this time with 
success. His journeys as a surveyor had brought 
him into touch with, and into the confidence of, 
enough voters throughout the county to secure 
the needed majority. 

Lincoln's active work as a lawyer lasted from 
1834 to i860, or for about twenty-six years. 
He secured in the cases undertaken by him a very 
large proportion of successful decisions. Such a 
result is not entirely to be credited to his effective- 
ness as an advocate. The first reason was that 
in his individual work, that is to say, in the matters 
that were taken up by himself rather than by his 



Work at the Bar 13 

partner, he accepted no case in the justice of 
which he did not himself have full confidence. 
As his fame as an advocate increased, he was 
approached by an increasing number of clients 
who wanted the advantage of the effective service 
of the young lawyer and also of his assured 
reputation for honesty of statement and of man- 
agement. Unless, however, he believed in the 
case, he put such suggestions to one side even 
at the time when the income was meagre and 
when every dollar was of importance. 

Lincoln's record at the Bar has been somewhat 
obscured by the value of his public service, but 
as it comes to be studied, it is shown to have been 
both distinctive and important. His law-books 
were, like those of his original library, few, but 
whatever volumes he had of his own and whatever 
he was able to place his hands upon from the 
shelves of his friends, he mastered thoroughly. 
His work at the Bar gave evidence of his excep- 
tional powers of reasoning while it was itself also 
a large influence in the development of such 
powers. The counsel who practised with and 
against him, the judges before whom his argu- 
ments were presented, and the members of the 
juries, the hard-headed working citizens of the 
State, seem to have all been equally impressed 



14 Abraham Lincoln 

with the exceptional fairness with which the 
young lawyer presented not only his own case 
but that of his opponent. He had great tact in 
holding his friends, in convincing those who did 
not agree with him, and in winning over oppo- 
nents; but he gave no futile effort to tasks which 
his judgment convinced him would prove impos- 
sible. He never, says Horace Porter, citing 
Lincoln's words, "wasted any time in trying to 
massage the back of a political porcupine." "A 
man might as well," says Lincoln, "under- 
take to throw fleas across the barnyard with a 
shovel. " 

He had as a youngster won repute as a teller 
of dramatic stories, and those who listened to 
his arguments in court were expecting to have 
his words to the jury brightened and rendered 
for the moment more effective by such stories. 
The hearers were often disappointed in such 
expectation. Neither at the Bar, nor, it may be 
said here, in his later work as a political leader, 
did Lincoln indulge himself in the telling a story 
for the sake of the story, nor for the sake of the 
laugh to be raised by the story, nor for the mo- 
mentary pleasure or possible temporary advantage 
of the discomfiture of the opponent. The story 
was used, whether in law or in politics, only 



Work at the Bar 15 

when it happened to be the shortest and most 
effective method of making clear an issue or of 
illustrating a statement. In later years, when 
he had upon him the terrible burdens of the great 
struggle, Lincoln used stories from time to time 
as a vent to his feelings. The impression given 
was that by an effort of will and in order to keep 
his mind from dwelling too continuously upon 
the tremendous problems upon which he was 
engaged, he would, by the use of some humorous 
reminiscence, set his thoughts in a direction as 
different as possible from that of his cares. A 
third and very valuable use of the story which 
grew up in his Washington days was to turn 
aside some persistent but impossible application; 
and to give to the applicant, with the least 
risk of unnecessary annoyance to his feelings, 
the "no" that was necessary. It is doubtless 
also the case that, as has happened to other 
men gifted with humour, Lincoln's reputation 
as a story-teller caused to be ascribed to him a 
great series of anecdotes and incidents of one 
kind or another, some of which would have been 
entirely outside of, and inconsistent with, his 
own standard and his own method. There is the 
further and final word to be said about Lincoln's 
stories, that they were entitled to the geometrical 



1 6 Abraham Lincoln 

commendation of "being neither too long nor too 
broad." 

In 1846, Lincoln was elected to Congress as a 
Whig. The circle of acquaintances whom he had 
made in the county as surveyor had widened out 
with his work as a lawyer; he secured a unani- 
mous nomination and was elected without difficulty 
in a constituency comprising six counties. I find 
in the record of the campaign the detail that Lin- 
coln returned to certain of his friends who had 
undertaken to find the funds for election expenses, 
$199.90 out of the $200 subscribed. 

In 1847, Lincoln was one of the group of Whigs 
in Congress who opposed the Mexican War. These 
men took the ground that the war was one of 
aggression and spoliation. Their views, which 
were quite prevalent throughout New England, 
are effectively presented in Lowell's Bigelow 
Papers. When the army was once in the field, 
Lincoln was, however, ready to give his Congres- 
sional vote for the fullest and most energetic sup- 
port. A year or more later, he worked actively 
for the election of General Taylor. He took the 
ground that the responsibility for the war rested 
not with the soldiers who had fought it to a suc- 
cessful conclusion, but with the politicians who 
had devised the original land -grabbing scheme. 



Entrance into Politics 17 

In 1849, we find Lincoln's name connected 
with an invention for lifting vessels over shoals. 
His sojourn on the Sangamon River and his 
memory of the attempt, successful for the moment 
but ending in failure, to make the river available 
for steamboats, had attracted his attention to 
the problem of steering river vessels over shoals. 
In 1864, when I was campaigning on the Red 
River in Louisiana, I noticed with interest a 
device that had been put into shape for the purpose 
of lifting river steamers over shoals. This device 
took the form of stilts which for the smaller 
vessels (and only the smaller steamers could 
as a rule be managed in this way) were fastened 
on pivots from the upper deck on the outside 
of the hull and were worked from the deck with 
a force of two or three men at each stilt. The 
difficulty on the Red River was that the Rebel 
sharp-shooters from the banks made the manage- 
ment of the stilts irregular. 

In 1854, Douglas carried through Congress 
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. This bill repealed 
the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and cancelled 
also the provisions of the series of compromises 
of 1850. Its purpose was to throw open for 
settlement and for later organisation as Slave 
States the whole territory of the North-west from 



i8 Abraham Lincoln 

which, under the Missouri Compromise, slavery 
had been excluded. The Kansas- Nebraska Bill 
not only threw open a great territory to slavery 
but re-opened the whole slavery discussion. The 
issues that were brought to the front in the dis- 
cussions about this bill, and in the still more 
bitter contests after the passage of the bill in 
regard to the admission of Kansas as a Slave 
State, were the immediate precursors of the Civil 
War. The larger causes lay further back, but 
the War would have been postponed for an inde- 
finite period if it had not been for the pressing 
on the part of the South for the right to make 
Slave States throughout the entire territory of 
the country, and for the readiness on the part 
of certain Democratic leaders of the North, of 
whom Douglas was the chief, to accept this con- 
tention, and through such expedients to gain, 
or to retain, political control for the Democratic 
party. 

In one of the long series of debates in Congress 
on the question of the right to take slaves into 
free territory, a planter from South Carolina 
drew an affecting picture of his relations with 
his old coloured foster-mother, the "mammy" 
of the plantation. "Do you tell me," he said, 
addressing himself to a Free-soil opponent, "that 



Entrance into Politics 19 

I, a free American citizen, am not to be permitted, 
if I want to go across the Missouri River, to take 
with me my whole home circle? Do you say 
that I must leave my old ' Mammy ' behind in 
South Carolina?" "Oh!" replied the Westerner, 
"the trouble with you is not that you cannot 
take your 'Mammy' into this free territory, 
but that you are not to be at liberty to sell her 
when you get her there. " 

Lincoln threw himself with full earnestness of 
conviction and ardour into the fight to preserve 
for freedom the territory belonging to the nation. 
In common with the majority of the Whig party, 
he held the opinion that if slavery could be re- 
stricted to the States in which it was already in 
existence, if no further States should be admitted 
into the Union with the burden of slavery, the 
institution must, in the course of a generation 
or two, die out. He was clear in his mind that 
slavery was an enormous evil for the whites 
as well as for the blacks, for the individual as 
for the nation. He had himself, as a young man, 
been brought up to do toilsome manual labour. 
He would not admit that there was anything in 
manual labour that ought to impair the respect 
of the community for the labourer or the worker's 
respect for himself. Not the least of the evils of 



20 Abraham Lincoln 

slavery was, in his judgment, its inevitable in- 
fluence in bringing degradation upon labour and 
the labourer. 

The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act made 
clear to the North that the South would accept 
no limitations for slavery. The position of the 
Southern leaders, in which they had the substan- 
tial backing of their constituents, was that slaves 
were property and that the Constitution, having 
guaranteed the protection of property to all the 
citizens of the commonwealth, a slaveholder 
was deprived of his constitutional rights as a 
citizen if his control of this portion of his property 
was in any way interfered with or restricted. 
The argument in behalf of this extreme Southern 
claim had been shaped most eloquently and 
most forcibly by John C. Calhoun during the years 
between 1830 and 1850. The Calhoun opinion 
was represented a few years later in the Presi- 
dential candidacy of John C. Breckinridge. The 
contention of the more extreme of the Northern 
opponents of slavery voters, whose spokesmen 
were William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, 
James G. Birney, Owen Lovejoy, and others, 
was that the Constitution in so far as it recognised 
slavery (which it did only by implication) was a 
compact with evil. They held that the Fathers 



Entrance into Politics 21 

had been led into this compact unwittingly and 
without full realisation of the responsibilities that 
they were assuming for the perpetuation of a 
great wrong. They refused to accept the view 
that later generations of American citizens were 
to be bound for an indefinite period by this error 
of judgment on the part of the Fathers. They 
proposed to get rid of slavery, as an institution 
incompatible with the principles on which the 
Republic was founded. They pointed out that 
under the Declaration of Independence all men 
had an equal right to "life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness," and that there was no limita- 
tion of this claim to men of white blood. If it was 
not going to be possible to argue slavery out of 
existence, these men preferred to have the Union 
dissolved rather than to bring upon States like 
Massachusetts a share of the responsibility for 
the wrong done to mankind and to justice under 
the laws of South Carolina. 

The Whig party, whose great leader, Henry 
Clay, had closed his life in 1852, just at the time 
when Lincoln was becoming prominent in politics, 
held that all citizens were bound by the compact 
entered into by their ancestors, first under the 
Articles of Confederation of 1783, and later under 
the Constitution of 1789. Our ancestors had. 



2 2 Abraham Lincoln 

for the purpose of bringing about the organisation 
of the Union, agreed to respect the institution 
of slavery in the States in which it existed. The 
Whigs of 1850, held, therefore, that in such of 
the Slave States as had been part of the original 
thirteen, slavery was an institution to be recog- 
nised and protected under the law of the land. 
They admitted, further, that what their grand- 
fathers had done in 1789, had been in a measure 
confirmed by the action of their fathers in 1820. 
The Missouri Compromise of 1820, in making 
clear that all States thereafter organised north 
of the line thirty-six thirty were to be Free 
States, made clear also that States south of that 
line had the privilege of coming into the Union 
with the institution of slavery and that the citizens 
in these newer Slave States should be assured 
of the same recognition and rights as had been 
accorded to those of the original thirteen. 

The Missouri Compromise permitted also the 
introduction of Missouri itself into the Union as 
a Slave State (as a counterpoise to the State of 
Maine admitted the same year), although almost 
the entire territory of the State of Missouri was 
north of the latitude 36° 30'. 

We may recall that, under the Constitution, 
the States of the South, while denying the suffrage 



Entrance into Politics 23 

to the negro, had secured the right to include 
the negro population as a basis for their represen- 
tation in the lower House. In apportioning the 
representatives to the population, five negroes 
were to be counted as the equivalent of three 
white men. The passage, in 1854, of the Kansas- 
Nebraska Act, the purpose of which was to con- 
firm the existence of slavery and to extend the 
institution throughout the country, was carried 
in the House by thirteen votes. The House 
contained at that time no less than twenty mem- 
bers representing the negro population. The 
negroes were, therefore, in this instance involun- 
tarily made the instruments for strengthening 
the chains of their own serfdom. 

It was in 1854 that Lincoln first propounded 
the famous question, "Can the nation endure 
half slave and half free?" This question, slightly 
modified, became the keynote four years later 
of Lincoln's contention against the Douglas theory 
of "squatter sovereignty." The organisation of 
the Republican party dates from 1856. Various 
claims have been made concerning the precise 
date and place at which were first presented the 
statement of principles that constituted the final 
platform of the party, and in regard to the men 
who were responsible for such statement. At a 



24 Abraham Lincoln 

meeting held as far back as July, 1854, at Jackson, 
Michigan, a platform was adopted by a conven- 
tion which had been brought together to formulate 
opposition to any extension of slavery, and this 
Jackson platform did contain the substance of 
the conclusions and certain of the phrases which 
later were included in the Republican platform. 
In January, 1856, Parke Godwin published in 
Putnam's Monthly, of which he was political 
editor, an article outlining the necessary consti- 
tution of the new party. This article gave a 
fuller expression than had thus far been made of 
the views of the men who were later accepted 
as the leaders of the Republican party. In 
May, 1856, Lincoln made a speech at Bloomington, 
Illinois, setting forth the principles for the anti- 
slavery campaign as they were understood by 
his group of Whigs. In this speech, Lincoln 
speaks of "that perfect liberty for which our 
Southern fellow-citizens are sighing, the liberty 
of making slaves of other people"; and again, 
" It is the contention of Mr. Douglas, in his claim 
for the rights of American citizens, that if A sees 
fit to enslave B, no other man shall have the 
right to object." Of this Bloomington speech, 
Herndon says: "It was logic; it was pathos; 
it was enthusiasm; it was justice, integrity, truth, 



Entrance into Politics 25 

and right. The words seemed to be set ablaze 
by the divine fires of a soul maddened by a great 
wrong. The utterance was hard, knotty, gnarly, 
backed with wrath." 

From this time on, Lincoln was becoming 
known throughout the country as one of the 
leaders in the new issues, able and ready to 
give time and service to the anti-slavery fight 
and to the campaign work of the Republican 
organisation. This political service interfered 
to some extent with his work at the Bar, but 
he did not permit political interests to stand in 
the way of any obligations that had been assumed 
to his clients. He simply accepted fewer cases, 
and to this extent reduced his very moderate 
earnings. In his work as a lawyer, he never 
showed any particular capacity for increasing 
income or for looking after his own business 
interests. It was his principle and his practice 
to discourage litigation. He appears, during 
the twenty-five years in which he was in active 
practice, to have made absolutely no enemies 
among his professional opponents. He enjoyed 
an exceptional reputation for the frankness with 
which he would accept the legitimate contentions 
of his opponents or would even himself state 
their case. Judge David Davis, before whom 



26 Abraham Lincoln 

Lincoln had occasion during these years to practise, 
says that the Court was always prepared to accept 
as absolutely fair and substantially complete 
Lincoln's statement of the matters at issue. 
Davis says it occasionally happened that Lincoln 
would supply some consideration of importance 
on his opponent's side of the case that the other 
counsel had overlooked. It was Lincoln's prin- 
ciple to impress upon himself at the outset the 
full strength of the other man's position. It was 
also his principle to accept no case in the justice 
of which he had not been able himself to believe. 
He possessed also by nature an exceptional 
capacity for the detection of faulty reasoning; 
and his exercise of the power of analysis in his 
work at the Bar proved of great service later in 
widening his influence as a political leader. The 
power that he possessed, when he was assured of 
the justice of his cause, of convincing court and 
jury became the power of impressing his con- 
victions upon great bodies of voters. Later, when 
he had upon his shoulders the leadership of the 
nation, he took the people into his confidence; 
he reasoned with them as if they were sitting as 
a great jury for the determination of the national 
policy, and he was able to impress upon them 
his perfect integrity of purpose and the soundness 



Entrance into Politics 27 

of his conclusions, — conclusions which thus became 
the policy of the nation. 

He calls himself a "mast-fed lawyer" and 
it is true that his opportunities for reading 
continued to be most restricted. Davis said 
in regard to Lincoln's work as a lawyer: "He 
had a magnificent equipoise of head, conscience, 
and heart. In non-essentials he was pliable; 
but on the underlying principles of truth and 
justice, his will was as firm as steel." We 
find from the record of Lincoln's work in the 
Assembly and later in Congress that he would 
never do as a Representative what he was unwill- 
ing to do as an individual. His capacity for 
seeing the humorous side of things was of course 
but a phase of a general clearness of perception. 
The man who sees things clearly, who is able 
to recognise both sides of a matter, the man 
who can see all round a position, the opposite of 
the man in blinders, that man necessarily has 
a sense of humour. He is able, if occasion presents, 
to laugh at himself. Lincoln's capacity for 
absorbing and for retaining information and for 
having this in readiness for use at the proper 
time was, as we have seen, something that went 
back to his boyhood. He says of himself: "My 
mind is something like a piece of steel; it is very 



28 Abraham Lincoln 

hard to scratch anything on it and almost impos- 
sible after you have got it there to rub it out." 
Lincoln's correspondence has been preserved 
with what is probably substantial completeness. 
The letters written by him to friends, acquain- 
tances, political correspondents, individual men of 
one kind or another, have been gathered together 
and have been brought into print not, as is most 
frequently the case, under the discretion or judg- 
ment of a friendly biographer, but by a great 
variety of more or less sympathetic people. It 
would seem as if but very few of Lincoln's letters 
could have been mislaid or destroyed. One can 
but be impressed, in reading these letters, with 
the absolute honesty of purpose and of statement 
that characterises them. There are very few 
men, particularly those whose active lives have 
been passed in a period of political struggle and 
civil war, whose correspondence could stand such 
a test. There never came to Lincoln requirement 
to say to his correspondent, "Burn this letter." 



Ill 

THE FIGHT AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY 

In 1856, the Supreme Court, under the head- 
ship of Judge Taney, gave out the decision of 
the Dred Scott case. The purport of this decision 
was that a negro was not to be considered as a 
person but as a chattel' and that the taking of 
such negro chattel into free territory did not 
cancel or impair the property rights of the master. 
It appeared to the men of the North as if under 
this decision the entire country, including in 
addition to the national territories the independ- 
ent States which had excluded slavery, was to 
be thrown open to the invasion of the institution. 
The Dred Scott decision, taken in connection 
with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
(and the two acts were doubtless a part of one 
thoroughly considered policy), foreshadowed as 
their logical and almost inevitable consequence 
the bringing of the entire nation under the control 
of slavery. The men of the future State of Kan- 
sas made during 1856-57 a plucky fight to keep 

29 



30 Abraham Lincoln 

slavery out of their borders. The so-called 
Lecompton Constitution undertook to force slav- 
ery upon Kansas. This constitution was de- 
clared by the administration (that of President 
Buchanan) to have been adopted, but the fraud- 
ulent character of the voting was so evident 
that Walker, the Democratic Governor, although 
a sympathiser with slavery, felt compelled to 
repudiate it. This constitution was repudiated 
also by Douglas, although Douglas had declared 
that the State ought to be thrown open to slavery. 
Jefferson Davis, at that time Secretary of War, 
declared that "Kansas was in a state of rebellion 
and that the rebellion must be crushed. " Armed 
bands from Missouri crossed the river to Kan- 
sas for the purpose of casting fraudulent votes 
and for the further purpose of keeping the Free- 
soil settlers away from the polls. 

This fight for freedom in Kansas gave a further 
basis for Lincoln's statement "that a house divided 
against itself cannot stand; this government 
cannot endure half slave and half free." It was 
with this statement as his starting-point that 
Lincoln entered into his famous Senatorial cam- 
paign with Douglas. Douglas had already repre- 
sented Illinois in the Senate for two 4;erms and 
had, therefore, the advantage of possession and 



Slavery Extension Fight 31 

of a substantial control of the machinery of the 
State. He had the repute at the time of being 
the leading political debater in the country. 
He was shrewd, forcible, courageous, and, in the 
matter of convictions, unprincipled. He knew 
admirably how to cater to the prejudices of the 
masses. His career thus far had been one of 
unbroken success. His Senatorial fight was, 
in his hope and expectation, to be but a step 
towards the Presidency. The Democratic party, 
with an absolute control south of j\Iason and 
Dixon's Line and with a very substantial support 
in the Northern States, was in a position, if un- 
broken, to control with practical certainty the 
Presidential election of i860. Douglas seemed 
to be the natural leader of the party. It was 
necessary for him, however, while retaining the 
support of the Democrats of the North, to make 
clear to those of the South that his influence 
would work for the maintenance and for the 
extension of slavery. 

The South was well pleased with the purpose 
and with the result of the Dred Scott decision 
and with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. 
It is probable, however, that if the Dred Scott 
decision had not given to the South so full a 
measure of satisfaction, the South would have 



32 Abraham Lincoln 

been more ready to accept the leadership of a 
Northern Democrat like Douglas. Up to a cer- 
tain point in the conflict, they had felt the need 
of Douglas and had realised the importance of 
the support that he was in a position to bring 
from the North. When, however, the Missouri 
Compromise had been repealed and the Supreme 
Court had declared that slaves must be recognised 
as property throughout the entire country, the 
Southern claims were increased to a point to which 
certain of the followers of Douglas were not 
willing to go. It was a large compliment to 
the young lawyer of Illinois to have placed upon 
him the responsibility of leading, against such 
a competitor as Douglas, the contest of the Whigs, 
and of the Free-soilers back of the Whigs, against 
any further extension of slavery, a contest which 
was really a fight for the continued existence of 
the nation. 

Lincoln seems to have gone into the fight with 
full courage, the courage of his convictions. 
He felt that Douglas was a trimmer, and he 
believed that the issue had now been brought to 
a point at which the trimmer could not hold 
support on both sides of Mason and Dixon's 
Line. He formulated at the outset of the debate 
a question which was pressed persistently upon 



Slavery Extension Fight 33 

Douglas during the succeeding three weeks. This 
question was worded as follows : ' 'Can the people 
of a United States territory, prior to the formation 
of a State constitution or against the protest of 
any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery?" 
Lincoln's campaign advisers were of opinion 
that this question was inadvisable. They took 
the ground that Douglas would answer the ques- 
tion in such way as to secure the approval of 
the voters of Illinois and that in so doing he 
would win the Senatorship. Lincoln's response 
was in substance : "That may be. I hold, how- 
ever, that if Douglas answers this question in a 
way to satisfy the Democrats of the North, he 
will inevitably lose the support of the more 
extreme, at least, of the Democrats of the South. 
We may lose the Senatorship as far as my personal 
candidacy is concerned. If, however, Douglas 
fails to retain the support of the South, he cannot 
become President in i860. The line will be drawn 
directly between those who are willing to accept 
the extreme claims of the South and those who 
resist these claims. A right decision is the 
essential thing for the safety of the nation." 
The question gave no little perplexity to Douglas. 
He finally, however, replied that in his judgment 
the people of a United States territory had the 



34 Abraham Lincoln 

right to exclude slavery. When asked again 
by Lincoln how he brought this decision into 
accord with the Dred Scott decision, he replied 
in substance: ''Well, they have not the right 
to take constitutional measures to exclude slavery 
but they can by local legislation render slavery 
practically impossible. " The Dred Scott decision 
had in fact itself overturned the Douglas theory 
of popular sovereignty or "squatter sovereignty. " 
Douglas was only able to say that his sovereignty 
contention made provision for such control of 
domestic or local regulations as would make 
slavery impossible. 

The South, rendered autocratic by the authority 
of the Supreme Court, was not willing to accept 
the possibility of slavery being thus restricted 
out of existence in any part of the country. The 
Southerners repudiated Douglas as Lincoln had 
prophesied they would do. Douglas had been 
trying the impossible task of carrying water on 
both shoulders. He gained the Senatorship by 
a narrow margin; he secured in the vote in the 
Legislature a majority of eight, but Lincoln had 
even in this fight won the support of the peo- 
ple. His majority on the popular vote was four 
thousand. 

The series of debates between these two leaders 



Slavery Extension Fight 3 5 

came to be of national importance. It was not 
merely a question of the representation in the 
Senate from the State of IlHnois, but of the 
presentation of arguments, not only to the voters 
of Illinois but to citizens throughout the entire 
country, in behalf of the restriction of slavery 
on the one hand or of its indefinite expansion 
and protection on the other. The debate was 
educational not merely for the voters who listened, 
but for the thousands of other voters who read 
the reports. It would be an enormous advantage 
for the political education of candidates and for 
the education of voters if such debates could 
become the routine in Congressional and Presiden- 
tial campaigns. Under the present routine, we 
have, in place of an assembly of voters representing 
the conflicting views of the two parties or of the 
several political groups, a homogeneous audience 
of one way of thinking, and speakers who have 
no opponent present to check the temptation 
to launch forth into wild statements, personal 
abuse, and irresponsible conclusions. An inter- 
ruption of the speaker is considered to be a dis- 
turbance of order, and the man who is not fully 
in sympathy with the views of the audience is 
likely to be put out as an interloper. With a 
system of joint debates, the speakers would be 



36 Abraham Lincoln 

under an educational repression. False or exag- 
gerated statements would not be made, or would 
not be made consciously, because they would 
be promptly corrected by the other fellow. There 
would of necessity come to be a better understand- 
ing and a larger respect for the positions of the 
opponent. The men who would be selected as 
leaders or speakers to enforce the contentions 
of the party, would have to possess some reasoning 
faculty as well as oratorical fluency. The voters, 
instead of being shut in with one group of argu- 
ments more or less reasonable, would be brought 
into touch with the arguments of other groups 
of citizens. I can conceive of no better method 
for bringing representative government on to a 
higher plane and for making an election what 
it ought to be, a reasonable decision by reasoning 
voters, than the institution of joint debates. 

I cite certain of the incisive statements 
that came into Lincoln's seven debates. "A 
s^ve, says Judge Douglas (on the authority 
of Judge Taney), is a human being who is legally 
not a person but a thing." "I contend [says 
Lincoln] that slavery is founded on the selfishness 
of man's nature. Slavery is a violation of the 
eternal right, and as long as God reigns and as 
school-children read, that black evil can never 



I 



Slavery Extension Fight 37 

be consecrated into God's truth." "A man does 
not lose his right to a piece of property which 
has been stolen. Can a man lose a right to 
himself if he himself has been stolen?" The 
following words present a summary of Lincoln's 
statements : 

Judge Douglas contends that if any one man 
chooses to enslave another, no third man has a right 
to ob j ect . Our Fathers , in accepting slavery under 
the Constitution as a legal institution, were of 
opinion, as is clearly indicated by the recorded 
utterances, that slavery would in the course of 
a few years die out. They were quite clear in 
their minds that the slave-trade must be abolished 
and for ever forbidden and this decision was 
arrived at under the leadership of men like Jeffer- 
son and without a protest from the South. Jeffer- 
son was himself the author of the Ordinance of 
1787, which in prohibiting the introduction of 
slavery, consecrated to freedom the great territory 
of the North-west, and this measure was fully 
approved by Washington and by the other great 
leaders from the South. Where slavery exists, 
full liberty refuses to enter. It was only through 
this wise action of the Fathers that it was possi- 
ble to bring into existence, through colonisation, 
the great territories and great States of the North- 



38 Abraham Lincoln 

west. It is this settlement, and the later ad- 
justment of 1820, that Douglas and his friends 
in the South are undertaking to overthrow. 
Slavery is not, as Judge Douglas contends, a 
local issue; it is a national responsibility. The 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise throws open 
not only a great new territory to the curse of 
slavery ; it throws open the whole slavery question 
for the embroiling of the present generation of 
Americans. Taking slaves into free territory 
is the same thing as reviving the slave-trade. 
It perpetuates and develops interstate slave- 
trade. Government derives its just powers from 
the consent of the governed. The Fathers did 
not claim that "the right of the people to govern 
negroes was the right of the people to govern 
themselves." 

The policy of Judge Douglas was based on the 
theory that the people did not care, but the 
people did care, as was evinced two years later 
by the popular vote for President throughout 
the North. One of those who heard these debates 
says: "Lincoln loved truth for its own sake. 
He had a deep, true, living conscience; honesty 
was his polar star. He never acted for stage 
effect. He was cool, spirited, reflective, self- 
possessed, and self-reliant. His style was clear. 



Slavery Extension Fight 39 

terse, compact. . . . He became tremendous in 
the directness of his utterance when, as his soul 
was inspired with the thought of human right 
and Divine justice, he rose to impassioned elo- 
quence, and at such times he was, in my judg- 
ment, unsurpassed by Clay or by Mirabeau." 
As the debates progressed, it was increasingly 
evident that Douglas found himself hard pushed. 
Lincoln would not allow himself to be swerved 
from the main issue by any tergiversation or 
personal attacks. He insisted from day to day 
in bringing Douglas back to this issue: "What 
do you, Douglas, propose to do about slavery 
in the territories? Is it your final judgment 
that there is to be no further reservation of free 
territory in this country? Do you believe that it 
is for the advantage of this country to put no 
restriction to the extension of slavery?" Doug- 
las wriggled and squirmed under this direct ques- 
tioning and his final replies gave satisfaction 
neither to the Northern Democrats nor to those of 
the South. The issue upon which the Presidential 
contest of i860 was to be fought out had been 
fairly stated. It was the same issue under which, 
in 1 86 1, the fighting took the form of civil war. 
It was the issue that took four years to fight 
out and that was finally decided in favour of the 



40 Abraham Lincoln 

continued existence of the nation as a free state. 
In this fight, Lincoln was not only, as the contest 
was finally shaped, the original leader; he was the 
final leader; and at the time of his death the great 
question had been decided for ever. 

Horace White, in summing up the issues that 
were fought out in debate between Lincoln and 
Douglas, says: 

"Forty-four years have passed away since the 
Civil War came to an end and we are now able to 
take a dispassionate view of the question in dispute. 
The people of the South are now generally agreed 
that the institution of slavery was a direful curse to 
both races. We of the North must confess that there 
was considerable foundation for the asserted right 
of States to secede. Although the Constitution did 
in distinct terms make the Federal Government 
supreme, it was not so understood at first by the 
people either North or South. Particularism pre- 
vailed everywhere at the beginning. Nationalism 
was an aftergrowth and a slow growth proceeding 
mainly from the habit into which people fell of finding 
their common centre of gravity at Washington City 
and of viewing it as the place whence the American 
name and fame were blazoned to the world. During 
the first half century of the Republic, the North and 
South were changing coats from time to time, on the 
subject of State Rights and the right to secede, but 



Slavery Extension Fight 41 

meanwhile the Constitution itself was working 
silently in the North to undermine the particularism 
of Jefferson and to strengthen the nationalism of 
Hamilton. It had accomplished its work in the 
early thirties, when it found its perfect expression in 
Webster's reply to Hayne. But the Southern people 
were just as firmly convinced that Hayne was the 
victor in that contest as the Northern people were 
that Webster was. The vast material interests bot- 
tomed on slavery offset and neutralised the unifying 
process in the South, while it continued its whole- 
some work in the North, and thus the clashing of 
ideas paved the way for the clash of arms. That 
the behaviour of the slaveholders resulted from the 
circumstances in which they were placed and not 
from any innate deviltry is a fact now conceded 
by all impartial men. It was conceded by Lincoln 
both before the War and during the War, and this 
fact accounts for the affection bestowed upon him by 
Southern hearts to-day. " 

Lincoln carried into politics the same standard 
of consistency of action that had characterised 
his work at the Bar. He writes, in 1859, to a 
correspondent whom he was directing to further 
the organisation of the new party: "Do not, 
in order to secure recruits, lower the standard 
of the Republican party. The true problem for 
i860, is to fight to prevent slavery from becoming 



42 Abraham Lincoln 

national. We must, however, recognise its con- 
stitutional right to exist in the States in which 
its existence was recognised under the original 
Constitution. " This position was unsatisfactory 
to the Whigs of the Border States who favoured 
a continuing division between Slave States and 
Free States of the territory yet to be organised 
into States. It was also unsatisfactory to the 
extreme anti-slavery Whigs of the new organisa- 
tion who insisted upon throttling slavery where- 
ever it existed. It is probable that the raid 
made by John Brown, in 1859, into Virginia 
for the purpose of rousing the slaves to fight 
for their own liberty, had some immediate influence 
in checking the activity of the more extreme 
anti-slavery group and in strengthening the 
conservative side of the new organisation. Lin- 
coln disapproved entirely of the purpose of Brown 
and his associates, while ready to give due respect 
to the idealistic courage of the man. 

In February, i860, Lincoln was invited by 
certain of the Republican leaders in New York 
to deliver one of a series of addresses which had 
been planned to make clear to the voters the 
purposes and the foundations of the new party. 
His name had become known to the Republicans 
of the East through the debates with Douglas. 



Slavery Extension Fight 43 

It was recognised that Lincoln had taken the 
highest ground in regard to the principles of 
the new party, and that his counsels should 
prove of practical service in the shaping of the 
policy of the Presidential campaign. It was 
believed also that his influence would be of 
value in securing voters in the Middle West. 
The Committee of Invitation included, in addition 
to a group of the old Whigs (of whom my father 
was one), representative Free- soil Democrats like 
William C. Bryant and John King. Lincoln's 
methods as a political leader and orator were 
known to one or two men on the committee, 
but his name was still unfamiliar to an Eastern 
audience. It was understood that the new leader 
from the West was going to talk to New York 
about the fight against slavery. It is probable 
that at least the larger part of the audience 
expected something "wild and woolly." The 
West at that time seemed very far off from New 
York and was still but little understood by the 
Eastern communities. New Yorkers found it 
difficult to believe that a man who could influence 
Western audiences could have anything to say 
that would count with the cultivated citizens 
of the East. The more optimistic of the hearers 
were hoping, however, that perhaps a new Henry 



44 Abraham Lincoln 

Clay had arisen and were looking for utterances 
of the ornate and grandiloquent kind such as 
they had heard frequently from Clay and from 
other statesmen of the South. 

The first impression of the man from the West 
did nothing to contradict the expectation of 
something weird, rough, and uncultivated. The 
long, ungainly figure upon which hung clothes 
that, while new for this trip, were evidently 
the work of an unskilful tailor; the large feet, 
the clumsy hands of which, at the outset, at 
least, the orator seemed to be unduly conscious; 
the long, gaunt head capped by a shock of hair 
that seemed not to have been thoroughly brushed 
out, made a picture which did not fit in with 
New York's conception of a finished statesman. 
The first utterance of the voice was not pleasant 
to the ear, the tone being harsh and the key too 
high. As the speech progressed, however, the 
speaker seemed to get into control of himself; 
the voice gained a natural and impressive modula- 
tion, the gestures were dignified and appropriate, 
and the hearers came under the influence of the 
earnest look from the deeply-set eyes and of the ab- 
solute integrity of purpose and of devotion to prin- 
ciple which were behind the thought and the words 
of the speaker. In place of a "wild and woolly" 



Slavery Extension Fight 45 

talk, illumined by more or less incongruous anec- 
dotes; in place of a high-strung exhortation of 
general principles or of a fierce protest against 
Southern arrogance, the New Yorkers had pre- 
sented to them a calm but forcible series of well- 
reasoned considerations upon which their action 
as citizens was to be based. It was evident that 
the man from the West understood thoroughly 
the constitutional history of the country; he had 
mastered the issues that had grown up about the 
slavery question; he knew thoroughly, and was 
prepared to respect, the rights of his political op- 
ponents; he knew with equal thoroughness the 
rights of the men whose views he was helping to 
shape and he insisted that there should be no 
wavering or weakening in regard to the enforce- 
ment of those rights; he made it clear that the 
continued existence of the nation depended upon 
having these issues equitably adjusted and he 
held that the equitable adjustment meant the 
restriction of slavery within its present bound- 
aries. He maintained that such restrictions were 
just and necessary as well for the sake of fairness 
to the blacks as for the final welfare of the whites. 
He insisted that the voters in the present States 
in the Union had upon them the largest possible 
measure of responsibility in so controlling the 



4^ Abraham Lincoln 

great domain of the Republic that the States 
of the future, the States in which their children 
and their grandchildren were to grow up as 
citizens, must be preserved in full liberty, must 
be protected against any invasion of an institution 
which represented barbarity. He maintained that 
such a contention could interfere in no way with 
the due recognition of the legitimate property 
rights of the present owners of slaves. He pointed 
out to the New Englander of the anti-slavery 
group that the restriction of slavery meant its 
early extermination. He insisted that war for 
the purpose of exterminating slavery from existing 
slave territory could not be justified. He was 
prepared, for the purpose of defending against 
slavery the national territory that was still free, 
to take the risk of the war which the South 
threatened because he believed that only through 
such defence could the existence of the nation 
be maintained; and he believed, further, that 
the maintenance of the great Republic was 
essential, not only for the interests of its own 
citizens, but for the interests of free government 
throughout the world. He spoke with full 
sympathy of the difficulties and problems resting 
upon the South, and he insisted that the mat- 
ters at issue could be adjusted only with a fair 



Slavery Extension Fight 47 

recognition of these difficulties. Aggression from 
either side of Mason and Dixon's Line must be 
withstood. 

I was but a boy when I first looked upon the 
gaunt figure of the man who was to become the 
people's leader, and listened to his calm but 
forcible arguments in behalf of the principles 
of the Republican party. It is not likely that 
at the time I took in, with any adequate appre- 
ciation, the weight of the speaker's reasoning. 
I have read the address more than once since 
and it is, of course, impossible to separate my 
first impressions from my later direct knowledge. 
I do remember that I was at once impressed 
with the feeling that here was a political leader 
whose methods differed from those of any politi- 
cian to whom I had listened. His contentions 
were based not upon invective or abuse of "the 
other fellow," but purely on considerations of 
justice, on that everlasting principle that what 
is just, and only what is just, represents the largest 
and highest interests of the nation as a whole. 
I doubt whether there occurred in the whole 
speech a single example of the stories which 
had been associated with Lincoln's name. The 
speaker was evidently himself impressed with 
the greatness of the opportunity and with the 



48 Abraham Lincoln 

dignity and importance of his responsibility. The 
speech in fact gave the keynote to the coming 
campaign. 

It is hardly necessary to add that it also decided 
the selection of the national leader not only for 
the political campaign, but through the coming 
struggle. If it had not been for the impression 
made upon New York and the East generally 
by Lincoln's speech and by the man himself, the 
vote of New York could not have been secured in 
the May convention for the nomination of the 
man from Illinois. 

Robert Lincoln (writing to me in July, 1908) 
says: 

"After my father's address in New York in February, 
i860, he made a trip to New England in order to 
visit me at Exeter, N. H., where I was then a student 
in the Phillips Academy. It had not been his plan 
to do any speaking in New England, but, as a result 
of the address in New York, he received several 
requests from New England friends for speeches, and 
I find that before returning to the West, he spoke 
at the following places: Providence, R. I., Manchester, 
N. H., Exeter, N. H., Dover, N. H., Concord, N. H., 
Hartford, Conn., Meriden, Conn., New Haven, Conn., 
Woonsocket, R. I., Norwalk, Conn., and Bridgeport, 
Conn. I am quite sure that coming and going he 



Slavery Extension Fight 49 

passed through Boston merely as an unknown 
traveller." 

Mr. Lincoln writes to his wife from Exeter, 
N. H., March 4, i860, as follows: 

"I have been unable to escape this toil. If I had 
foreseen it, I think I would not have come East at 
all. The speech at New York, being within my 
calculation before I started, went off passably well 
and gave me no trouble whatever. The difficulty 
was to make nine others, before reading audiences 
who had already seen all my ideas in print." ^ 

An edition of Mr. Lincoln's address was brought 
into print in September, i860, by the Young 
Men's Republican Union of New York, with notes 
by Charles C. Nott (later Colonel, and after the 
war Judge of the Court of Claims in Washington) 
and Cephas Brainerd. The publication of this 
pamphlet shows that as early as September, i860, 
the historic importance and permanent value of 
this speech were fairly realised by the national 
leaders of the day. In the preface to the reprint, 
the editors say : 

" The address is characterised by wisdom, truthful- 

» This letter has not been published. It is cited here 
through the courtesy of Mr. Robert Lincoln and Mr. R. W. 
Gilder. 



so Abraham Lincoln 

ness and learning. . . . From the first line to the last 
— from his premises to his conclusion, the speaker 
travels with a swift, unerring directness that no 
logician has ever excelled. His argument is com- 
plete and is presented without the affectation of 
learning, and without the stiffness which usually 
accompanies dates and details. ... A single simple 
sentence contains a chapter of history that has taken 
days of labour to verify, and that must have cost 
the author months of investigation to acquire. The 
reader may take up this address as a political pam- 
phlet, but he will leave it as an historical treatise 
— ^brief, complete, perfect, sound, impartial truth — 
which will serve the time and the occasion that called it 
forth, and which will be esteemed hereafter no less for 
its unpretending modesty than for its intrinsic worth . " * 

Horace White, who was himself present at the 
Chicago Convention, writes (in 1909) as follows: 

"To anybody looking back at the Republican 
National Convention of i860, it must be plain that 
there were only two men who had any chance of 
being nominated for President. 

"These were Lincoln and Seward. I was present 
at the Convention as a spectator and I knew this fact 
at the time, but it seemed to me at the beginning 

> The text of the speech, as revised by Lincoln and with 
the introduction and notes by Nott and Brainerd, is given as 
an appendix to this volume. 



Slavery Extension Fight 51 

that Seward's chances were the better. One third 
of the delegates of Illinois preferred Seward and 
expected to vote for him after a few complimentary 
ballots for Lincoln. If there had been no Lincoln 
in the field, Seward would certainly have been nomin- 
ated and then the course of history would have been 
very different from what it was, for if Seward had 
been nominated and elected there would have been 
no forcible opposition to the withdrawal of such 
States as then desired to secede. And as a conse- 
quence the Republican party would have been rent 
in twain and disabled from making effectual resistance 
to other demands of the South. 

"It was Seward's conviction that the policy of 
non-coercion would have quieted the secession move- 
ment in the Border States and that the Gulf States 
would, after a while, have returned to the Union 
like repentant prodigal sons. His proposal to Lincoln 
to seek a quarrel with four European nations, who 
had done us no harm, in order to arouse a feeling 
of Americanism in the Confederate States, was an 
outgrowth of this conviction. It was an indefensible 
proposition, akin to that which prompted Bismarck to 
make use of France as an anvil on which to hammer 
and weld Germany together, but it was not an un- 
patriotic one, since it was bottomed on a desire to 
preserve the Union without civil war." 

Never was a political leadership more fairly, 



52 Abraham Lincoln 

more nobly, and more reasonably won. When 
the ballot boxes were opened on the first Tuesday 
in November, Lincoln was found to have secured 
the electoral vote of every Northern State except 
New Jersey, and in New Jersey four electors 
out of seven. Breckinridge, the leader of the 
extreme Southern Democrats, had back of him 
only the votes of the Southern States outside 
of the Border States, these latter being divided 
between Bell and Douglas. Douglas and his 
shallow theories of "squatter sovereignty" had 
been buried beneath the good sense of the voters 
of the North. 



IV 



LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT ORGANISES THE PEOPLE 

FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF NATIONAL 

EXISTENCE 

After the election of November, i860, events 
moved swiftly. On the 20th of December, comes 
the first act of the Civil War, the secession of 
South Carolina. The secession of Georgia had 
for a time been delayed by the influence of Alex- 
ander H. Stephens who, on the 1 4th of November, 
had made a great argument for the maintenance 
of the Union. His chief local opponent at the 
time was Robert Toombs, the Southern leader 
who proposed in the near future to "call the roll- 
call of his slaves on Bunker Hill. " Lincoln was 
still hopeful of saving to the cause of the Union 
the Border States and the more conservative 
divisions of States, like North Carolina, which 
had supported the Whig party. 

In December, we find correspondence between 
Lincoln and Gilmer of North Carolina, whom 
he had known in Washington. "The essential 

Si 



54 Abraham Lincoln 

difference," says Lincoln, "between your group 
and mine is that you hold slavery to be in itself 
desirable and as something to be extended. I 
hold it to be an essential evil which, with due 
regard to existing rights, must be restricted and 
in the near future exterminated. " 

On the nth of February, 1861, Lincoln reaches 
Washington where he is to spend a weary and 
anxious three weeks of waiting for the burden 
of his new responsibilities. He is at this time 
fifty-two years of age. In one of his brief ad- 
dresses on the way to Washington he says: 

" It is but little to a man of my age, but a great deal 
to thirty millions of the citizens of the United States, 
and to posterity in all coming time, if the Union of 
the States and the liberties of the people are to 
be lost. If the majority is not to rule, who would be 
the judge of the issue or where is such judge to be 
found?" 

It is difficult to imagine a more exasperating 
condition of affairs than obtained in Washington 
while Lincoln was awaiting the day of inaugura- 
tion. The government appeared to be crumbling 
away under the nerveless direction, or lack of 
direction, of President Buchanan and his asso- 
ciates. In his last message to Congress, Buchanan 



Maintenance of National Existence 55 

had taken the ground that the Constitution made 
no provision for the secession of States or for 
the breaking up of the Union; but that it also 
failed to contain any provision for measures that 
could prevent such secession and the consequent 
destruction of the nation. The old gentleman 
appeared to be entirely unnerved by the pressure 
of events. He could not see any duty before 
him. He certainly failed to realise that the more 
immediate cause of the storm was the breaking 
down, through the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise, of the barriers that had in 1820, and in 
1850, been placed against the extension of slavery. 
He evidently failed to understand that it was 
his own action in backing up the infamous Le- 
compton Constitution, and the invasion of Kansas 
by the slave-owners, which had finally aroused 
the spirit of the North, and further that it was 
the influence of his administration which had 
given to the South the belief that it was now in a 
position to control for slavery the whole territory 
of the Republic. 

It has before now been pointed out that, under 
certain contingencies, the long interval between 
the national election and the inaugiu^al of the 
new President from the first Tuesday in November 
until the fourth day of March must, in not a few 



56 Abraham Lincoln 

instances, bring inconvenience, disadvantage, and 
difficulty not only to the new administration but 
to the nation. These months in which the mem- 
bers of an administration which had practically 
committed itself to the cause of disintegration, 
were left in charge of the resources of the nation 
gave a most serious example and evidence of 
such disadvantage. This historic instance ought 
to have been utilised immediately after the War 
as an influence for bringing about a change in the 
date for bringing into power the administration 
that has been chosen in November. 

By the time when Lincoln and the members of 
his Cabinet had placed in their hands the respon- 
sibilities of administration, the resources at the 
disposal of the government had, as far as prac- 
ticable, been scattered or rendered unavailable. 
The Secretary of the Navy, a Southerner, had 
taken pains to send to the farthest waters of 
the Pacific as many as possible of the vessels of 
the American fleet; the Secretary of War, also 
a Southerner, had for months been busy in trans- 
ferring to the arsenals of the South the guns 
and ammunition that had been stored in the 
Federal arsenals of the North; the Secretary of 
the Treasury had had no difficulty in disposing 
of government funds in one direction or another 



Maintenance of National Existence 57 

so that there was practically no balance to hand 
over to his successor available for the most im- 
mediate necessities of the new administration. 

One of the sayings quoted from Washington 
during these weeks was the answer given by 
Count Gurowsld to the inquiry, ' ' Is there anything 
in addition this morning?" "No," said Gurow- 
sld, "it is all in subtraction. " 

By the day of the inaugural, the secession 
of seven States was an accomplished fact and 
the government of the Confederacy had already 
been organised in Montgomery. Alexander H. 
Stephens had so far modified his original position 
that he had accepted the post of Vice-President 
and in his own inaugural address had used 
the phrase, "Slavery is the corner-stone of our 
new nation," a phrase that was to make much 
mischief in Europe for the hopes of the new 
Confederacy. 

In the first inaugural, one of the great addresses 
in a noteworthy series, Lincoln presented to the 
attention of the leaders of the South certain very 
trenchant arguments against the wisdom of 
their course. He says of secession for the purpose 
of preserving the institution of slavery: 

"You complain that under the government of the 
United States your slaves have from time to time 



S8 Abraham Lincoln 

escaped across your borders and have not been re- 
turned to you. Their value as property has been 
lessened by the fact that adjoining your Slave States 
were certain States inhabited by people who did not 
believe in your institution. How is this condition 
going to be changed by war even under the assump- 
tion that the war may be successful in securing your 
independence? Your slave territory will still adjoin 
territory inhabited by free men who are inimical to 
your institution; but these men will no longer be 
bound by any of the restrictions which have obtained 
under the Constitution. They will not have to give 
consideration to the rights of slave-owners who are 
fellow-citizens. Your slaves will escape as before 
and you will have no measure of redress. Your 
indignation may produce further wars, but the wars 
can but have the same result until finally, after 
indefinite loss of life and of resources, the institution 
will have been hammered out of existence by the 
inevitable conditions of existing civilisation." 

Lincoln points out further in this same address 
the difference between his responsibilities and 
those of the Southern leaders who are organis- 
ing for war. "You," he says, "have no oath 
registered in Heaven to destroy this government, 
while I have the most solemn oath to preserve, 
direct, and defend it." 

"It was not necessary," says Lincoln, "for the Con- 



Maintenance of National Existence 59 

stitution to contain any provision expressly, forbidding 
the disintegration of the state; perpetuity and the 
right to maintain self-existence will be considered 
as a fundamental law of all national government. 
If the theory be accepted that the United States 
was an association or federation of communities, 
the creation or continued existence of such federation 
must rest upon contract; and before such contract 
can be rescinded, the consent is required of both or of 
all of the parties assenting to it." 

He closes with the famous invocation to the fellow- 
Americans of the South against whom throughout 
the whole message there had not been one word 
of bitterness or rancour: "We are not enemies 
but friends. We must not be enemies. Though 
passion may have strained our relations, it must 
not break our bonds of affection. " 

It was, however, too late for argument, and 
too late for invocations of friendship. The issue 
had been forced by the South and the war for 
which the leaders of the South had for months, 
if not for years, been making preparation was 
now to be begun by Southern action. It remained 
to make clear to the North, where the people up 
to the last moment had been unwilling to believe 
in the possibility of civil war, that the nation 
pould be preserved only by fighting for its exist- 



6o Abraham Lincoln 

ence. It remained to organise the men of the 
North into armies which should be competent 
to carry out this tremendous task of maintaining 
the nation's existence. 

It was just after the great inaugural and when 
his head must have been full of cares and his 
hands of work, that Lincoln took time to write a 
touching little note that I find in his correspond- 
ence. It was addressed to a boy who had 
evidently spoken with natural pride of having 
met the President and whose word had been 
questioned : 

"The White House, March i8, 1861. 
"I did see and talk in May last at Springfield, 
Illinois, with Master George Edward Patten." 

With the beginning of the work of the admin- 
istration, came trouble with the members of the 
Cabinet. The several secretaries were, in form at 
least, the choice of the President, but as must 
always be the case in the shaping of a Cabinet, 
and as was particularly necessary at a time when 
it was of first importance to bring into harmoni- 
ous relations all of the political groups of the 
North which were prepared to be loyal to the 
government, the men who took office in the first 
Cabinet of Lincoln represented not any personal 



Maintenance of National Existence 6i 

preference of the President, but political or 
national requirements. The Secretary of State, 
Mr. Seward, had, as we know, been Lincoln's 
leading opponent for the Presidential nomina- 
tion and had expressed with some freedom of 
criticism his disappointment that he, the natural 
leader of the party, should be put to one side for 
an tmcultivated, inexperienced Westerner. Mr. 
Seward possessed both experience and culture; 
more than this, he was a scholar, and came of a 
long line of gentlefolk. He had public spirit, 
courage, legitimate political ambition, and some 
of the qualities of leadership. His nature was, 
however, not quite large enough to stand the 
pressure of political disappointment nor quite 
elastic enough to develop rapidly under the 
tremendous urgency of absolutely new require- 
ments. It is in evidence that more than once 
in the management of the complex and serious 
difficulties of the State Department during the 
years of war, Seward lost his head. It is also 
on record that the wise-minded and fair-minded 
President was able to supply certain serious gaps 
and deficiencies in the direction of the work of 
the Department, and further that his service 
was so rendered as to save the dignity and the 
repute of the Secretary. Seward's subjectivity, 



62 Abraham Lincoln 

not to say vanity, was great, and it took some 
little time before he was able to realise that his 
was not the first mind or the strongest will-power 
in the new administration. On the first of April, 
1 86 1, less than thirty days after the organisation 
of the Cabinet, Seward writes to Lincoln com- 
plaining that the "government had as yet no 
policy ; that its action seemed to be simply drift- 
ing"; that there was a lack of any clear-minded 
control in the direction of affairs within the 
Cabinet, in the presentation to the people of the 
piirposes of the government, and in the shaping 
of the all-important relations with foreign states. 
"Who," said Seward, "is to control the national 
policy?" The letter goes on to suggest that 
Mr. Seward is willing to take the responsibility, 
leaving, if needs be, the credit to the nominal 
chief. The letter was a curious example of the 
weakness and of the bumptiousness of the man, 
while it gave evidence also, it is fair to say, of 
a real public-spirited desire that things should 
go right and that the nation should be saved. 
It was evident that he had as yet no adequate 
faith in the capacity of the President. 

Lincoln's answer was characteristic of the 
man. There was no irritation with the bumptious- 
ness, no annoyance at the lack of confidence on 



Maintenance of National Existence 63 

the part of his associate. He states simply: 
"There must, of course, be control and the respon- 
sibility for this control must rest with me." 
He points out further that the general policy 
of the administration had been outlined in the 
inaugural, that no action since taken had been 
inconsistent with this. The necessary prepara- 
tions for the defence of the government were in 
train and, as the President trusted, were being 
energetically pushed forward by the several 
department heads. "I have a right," said 
Lincoln, "to expect loyal co-operation from 
my associates in the Cabinet. I need their 
counsel and the nation needs the best service that 
can be secured from our united wisdom. " The 
letter of Seward was put away and appears 
never to have been referred to between the two 
men. It saw the light only after the President's 
death. If he had lived it might possibly have 
been suppressed altogether. A month later, 
Seward said to a friend, "There is in the Cabinet 
but one vote and that is cast by the President. " 
The post next in importance under the existing 
war conditions was that of Secretary of War. 
The first man to hold this post was Simon Cameron 
of Pennsylvania. Cameron was very far from 
being a friend of Lincoln's. The two men had 



64 Abraham Lincoln 

had no personal relations and what Lincoln 
knew of him he liked not at all. The appointment 
had been made under the pressure of the Republi- 
cans of Pennsylvania, a State whose support was, 
of course, all important for the administration. 
It was not the first nor the last time that the 
Republicans of this great State, whose Republi- 
canism seems to be much safer than its judgment, 
have committed themselves to unworthy and 
undesirable representatives, men who were not 
fitted to stand for Pennsylvania and who were 
neither willing nor able to be of any service to 
the country. The appointment of Cameron had, 
as appears from the later history, been promised 
to Pennsylvania by Judge Davis in return for 
the support of the Pennsylvania delegation for 
the nomination of Lincoln. Lincoln knew nothing 
of the promise and was able to say with truth, 
and to prove, that he had authorised no promises 
and no engagements whatsoever. He had, in 
fact, absolutely prohibited Davis and the one 
or two other men who were supposed to have 
some right to speak for him in the convention, 
from the acceptance of any engagements or 
obligations whatsoever. Davis made the pro- 
mise to Pennsylvania on his own responsibility 
and at his own risk ; Lincoln felt under too much 



Maintenance of National Existence 65 

obligation to Davis for personal service and for 
friendly loyalty to be willing, when the claim 
was finally pressed, to put it to one side as un- 
warranted. The appointment of Cameron was 
made and proved to be expensive for the efficiency 
of the War Department and for the repute of the 
administration. It became necessary within a 
comparatively short period to secure his resigna- 
tion. It was in evidence that he was trafficking 
in appointments and in contracts. He was re- 
placed by Edwin M. Stanton, who was known 
later as "the Carnot of the War." Stanton's 
career as a lawyer had given him no direct expe- 
rience of army affairs. He showed, however, 
exceptional ability, great will power, and an 
enormous capacity for work. He was ambitious, 
self-willed, and most arbitrary in deed and in 
speech. The difficulty with Stanton was that 
he was as likely to insult and to browbeat some 
loyal supporter of the government as to bring 
to book, and, when necessary, to crush, greedy 
speculators and disloyal tricksters. His judg- 
ment in regard to men was in fact very often 
at fault. He came into early and unnecessary 
conflict with his chief and he found there a will 
stronger than his own. The respect of the two 
men for each other grew into a cordial regard. 



66 Abraham Lincoln 

Each recognised the loyaHty of purpose and the 
patriotism by which the actions of both were 
influenced. Lincoln was able to some extent to 
soften and to modify the needless truculency of 
the great War Secretary, and notwithstanding a 
good deal of troublesome friction, armies were 
organised and the troops were sent to the front. 
The management of the Treasury, a respon- 
sibility hardly less in importance under the war 
conditions than that of the organisation of the 
armies, was placed in the hands of Senator Chase. 
He received from his precursor an empty trea- 
sury while from the administration came demands 
for immediate and rapidly increasing weekly sup- 
plies of funds. The task came upon him first 
of establishing a national credit and secondly 
of utilising this credit for loans such as the civilised 
world had not before known. The expenditures 
extended by leaps and bounds until by the middle 
of 1864 they had reached the sum of $2,000,000 
a day. Blunders were made in large matters 
and in small, but, under the circumstances, 
blunders were not to be avoided and the chief 
purpose was carried out. A sufficient credit 
was established, first with the citizens at home 
and later with investors abroad, to make a market 
for the millions of bonds in the two great issues, 



Maintenance of National Existence 67 

the so-called seven-thirties and five-twenties. 
The sales of these bonds, together with a wide- 
reaching and, in fact, unduly complex system 
of taxation, secured the funds necessary for the 
support of the army and the navy. At the close 
of the War, the government, after meeting this 
expenditure, had a national war debt of some- 
thing over four thousand millions of dollars. 
The gross indebtedness resulting from the War 
was of course, however, much larger because 
each State had incurred war expenditures and 
counties as well as States had issued bonds for 
the payment of bounties, etc. The criticism 
was made at the time by the opponents of the 
financial system which was shaped by the Com- 
mittee of Ways and Means in co-operation with 
the Secretary, a criticism that has often been re- 
peated since, that the War expenditure would have 
been much less if the amounts needed beyond 
what could be secured by present taxation had 
been supplied entirely by the proceeds of bonds. 
In addition, however, to the issues of bonds, the 
government issued currency to a large amount, 
which was made legal tender and which on the 
face of it was not made subject to redemption. 
In addition to the bills ranging in denomination 
from one dollar to one thousand, the government 



68 Abraham Lincoln 

brought into distribution what was called "postal 
currency." I landed in New York in August, 
1862, having returned from a University in 
Germany for the purpose of enlisting in the army. 
I was amused to see my father make payment 
in the restaurant for my first lunch in postage 
stamps. He picked the requisite number, or 
the number that he believed would be requisite, 
from a ball of stamps which had, under the 
influence of the simimer heat, stuck together 
so closely as to be very difficult to handle. Many 
of the stamps were in fact practically destroyed 
and were unavailable. Some question arose be- 
tween the restaurant keeper and my father as 
to the availability of one or two of the stamps 
that had been handed over. My father explained 
to me that immediately after the outbreak of 
the War, specie, including even the nickels and 
copper pennies, had disappeared from circulation, 
and the people had been utilising for the small 
change necessary for current operations the 
postage stamps, a use which, in connection with 
the large percentage of destruction, was profit- 
able to the government, but extravagant for the 
community. A little later, the postal depart- 
ment was considerate enough to bring into print 
a series of postage stamps without any gum on 



Maintenance of National Existence 69 

the back. These could, of course, be handled 
more easily, but were still seriously perishable. 
Towards the close of the year, the Treasury 
department printed from artistically engraved 
plates a baby currency in notes of about two and 
a half inches long by one and a half inches wide. 
The denominations comprised ten cents, fifteen 
cents, twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and seventy- 
five cents. The fifteen cents and the seventy- 
five cents were not much called for, and were 
probably not printed more than once. They 
would now be scarce as curiosities. The postal 
currency was well printed on substantial paper, 
but in conjiection with the large requirement 
for handling that is always placed upon small 
currency, these little paper notes became very 
dirty and were easily used up. The government 
must have made a large profit from the percentage 
that was destroyed. The necessary effect of this 
distribution of government "I. O. U.'s," based 
not upon any redemption fund of gold but merely 
upon the general credit of the government, was 
to appreciate the value of gold. In June, 1863, 
just before the battle of Gettysburg, the depre- 
ciation of this paper currency, which represented 
of course the appreciation of gold, was in the 
ratio of 100 to 2 90. It happened that the number 



70 Abraham Lincoln 

290, which marked the highest price reached by 
gold during the War, was the number that had 
been given in Laird's ship-yard (on the Mersey) 
to the Confederate cruiser Alabama. 

Chase was not only a hard-working Secretary 
of the Treasury but an ambitious, active-minded, 
and intriguing politician. He represented in the 
administration the more extreme anti-slavery 
group. He was one of those who favoured from 
the beginning immediate action on the part of 
the government in regard to the slaves in the 
territory that was still controlled by the govern- 
ment. It is doubtless the case that he held these 
anti-slavery views as a matter of honest convic- 
tion. It is in evidence also from his correspon- 
dence that he connected with these views the 
hope and the expectation of becoming President. 
His scheming for the nomination for 1864 was 
carried on with the machinery that he had at 
his disposal as Secretary of the Treasury. The 
issues between Chase and Seward and between 
Chase and Stanton were many and bitter. The 
pressure on the part of the conservative Repub- 
licans to get Chase out of the Cabinet was con- 
siderable. Lincoln, believing that his service 
was valuable, refused to be influenced by any 
feeling of personal antagonism or personal rivalry. 



Maintenance of National Existence 71 

He held on to the Secretary until the last year 
of the War, when deciding that the Cabinet could 
then work more smoothly without him, he accepted 
his resignation. Even then, however, although 
he had had placed in his hands a note indicating 
a measure of what might be called personal 
disloyalty on the part of Chase, Lincoln was 
unwilling to lose his service for the country and 
appointed him as Chief Justice. 

Montgomery Blair was put into the Cabinet as 
Postmaster-General more particularly as the re- 
presentative of the loyalists of the Border States. 
His father was a leader in politics in Missouri, in 
which the family had long been of importance. 
His brother, Frank P. Blair, served with credit in 
the army, reaching the rank of Major-General. 
The Blair family was quite ready to fight for 
the Union, but was very unwilling to do any 
fighting for the black man. They wanted the 
Union restored as it had been, Missouri Com- 
promise and all. It was Blair who had occa- 
sion from time to time to point out, and with 
perfect truth, that if, through the influence of 
Chase and of the men back of Chase in Massachu- 
setts and northern Ohio, immediate action should 
be taken to abolish slavery in the Border States, 
fifty thousand men who had marched out of 



72 Abraham Lincoln 

those States to the support of the Union might 
be and probably would be recalled. "By a 
stroke of the pen," said Blair, "Missouri, eastern 
Tennessee, western Maryland, loyal Kentucky, 
now loyally supporting the cause of the nation, 
will be thrown into the arms of the Confederacy. " 
During the first two years of the War, and in 
fact up to September, 1863, the views of Blair 
and his associates prevailed, and with the fuller 
history before us, we may conclude that it was 
best that they should have prevailed. This was, 
at least, the conclusion of Lincoln, the one man 
who knew no sectional prejudices, who had before 
him all the information and all the arguments, 
and who had upon him the pressure from all 
quarters. It was not easy under the circum- 
stances to keep peace between Blair and Chase. 
Probably no man but Lincoln could have met 
the requirement. 

The Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, 
of Connecticut, while not a man of brilliancy 
or of great initiative, appears to have done his 
part quietly and effectively in the great work 
of the building and organising of a new fleet. 
He contributed nothing to the friction of the 
Cabinet and he was from the beginning a loyal 
supporter of the President. What we know now 



Maintenance of National Existence 73 

about the issues that arose between the different 
members of the Cabinet family comes to us 
chiefly through the Diary of Welles, who has de- 
scribed with apparent impartiality the idiosyn- 
crasies of each of the secretaries and whose 
references to the tact, patience, and gracefully 
exercised will-power of the President are fully 
in line with the best estimates of Lincoln's 
character. 

One of the first and most difficult tasks con- 
fronting the President and his secretaries in the 
organisation of the army and of the navy was 
in the matter of the higher appointments. The 
army had always been a favourite provision for 
the men from the South. The representatives 
of Southern families were, as a rule, averse to 
trade and there were, in fact, under the more 
restricted conditions of business in the Southern 
States, comparatively few openings for trading on 
the larger or mercantile scale. As a result of this 
preference, the cadet ships in West Point and the 
commissions in the army had been held in much 
larger proportion (according to the population) 
by men of Southern birth. This was less the 
case in the navy because the marine interests of 
New England and of the Middle States had edu- 
cated a larger number of Northern men for naval 



74 Abraham Lincoln 

interests. When the war began, a very consider- 
able number of the best trained and most valuable 
officers in the army resigned to take part with 
their States. The army lost the service of men 
like Lee, Johnston, Beauregard, and many others. 
A few good Southerners, such as Thomas of 
Virginia and Anderson of Kentucky, took the 
ground that their duty to the Union and to the 
flag was greater than their obligation to their 
State. In the navy, Maury, Semmes, Buchanan, 
and other men of ability resigned their commis- 
sions and devoted themselves to the (by no means 
easy) task of building up a navy for the South • 
but Farragut of Tennessee remained with the 
navy to carry the flag of his country to New 
Orleans and to Mobile. 

It was easy and natural during the heat of 
1 86 1 to characterise as traitors the men who 
went with their States to fight against the flag 
of their country. Looking at the matter now, 
forty- seven years later, we are better able to 
estimate the character and the integrity of the 
motives by which they were actuated. We do 
not need to-day to use the term traitors for men 
like Lee and Johnston. It was not at all unnatural 
that with their understanding of the government 
of the States in which they had been born, and 



Maintenance of National Existence 75 

with their belief that these States had a right 
to take action for themselves, they should have 
decided that their obligation lay to the State 
rather than to what they had persisted in think- 
ing of not as a nation but as a mere confederation. 
We may rather believe that Lee was as honest 
in his way as Thomas and Farragut in theirs, 
but the view that the United States is a nation 
has been maintained through the loyal services 
of the men who held with Thomas and with 
Farragut. 



V 



THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR 

On April 12 , 1861, came with the bombardment 
of Fort Sumter the actual beginning of the War. 
The foreseeing shrewdness of Lincoln had resisted 
all suggestions for any such immediate action 
on the part of the government as would place 
upon the North the responsibility for the opening 
of hostilities. Shortly after the fall of Sumter, 
a despatch was drafted by Seward for the guidance 
of American ministers abroad. The first reports 
in regard to the probable action of European 
governments gave the impression that the sym- 
pathy of these governments was largely with the 
South. In France and England, expressions had 
been used by leading officials which appeared 
to foreshadow an early recognition of the Con- 
federacy. Seward's despatch as first drafted 
was unwisely angry and truculent in tone. If 
brought into publication, it would probably have 
increased the antagonism of the men who were 

76 



Beginning of the Civil War 77 

ruling England. It appeared in fact to foreshadow 
war with England. Seward had assumed that 
England was going to take active part with the 
South and was at once throwing down the gauntlet 
of defiance. It was Lincoln who insisted that 
this was no time, whatever might be the provoca- 
tion, for the United States to be shaking its fist 
at Europe. The despatch was reworded and the 
harsh and angry expressions were eliminated. 
The right claimed by the United States, in com- 
mon with all nations, to maintain its own exis- 
tence was set forth with full force, while it was 
also made clear that the nation was strong enough 
to maintain its rights against all foes whether 
within or without its boundaries. It is rather 
strange to recall that throughout the relations 
of the two men, it was the trained and scholarly 
statesman of the East who had to be repressed 
for unwise truculency and that the repression 
was done under the direction of the comparatively 
inexperienced representative of the West, the 
man who had been dreaded by the conservative 
Republicans of New York as likely to introduce 
into the national policy "wild and woolly" 
notions. 

In Lincoln's first message to Congress, he asks 
the following question: "Must a government 



78 Abraham Lincoln 

be of necessity too strong for the liberties of its 
own people or too weak to maintain its own 
existence? Is there in all republics this inherent 
weakness?" The people of the United States 
were able under the wise leadership of Lincoln 
to answer this question "no." Lincoln begins 
at once with the public utterances of the first 
year of the War to take the people of the United 
States into his confidence. He is their repre- 
sentative, their servant. He reasons out before 
the people, as if it constituted a great jury, the 
analysis of their position, of their responsibilities, 
and the grounds on which as their representative 
this or that decision is arrived at. Says Schiirz: 
"Lincoln wielded the powers of government 
when stern resolution and relentless force were 
the order of the day, and, won and riiled the 
poptilar mind and heart by the tender sympathies 
of his nature. " 

The attack on Sumter placed upon the admin- 
istration the duty of organising at once for the 
contest now inevitable the forces of the country. 
This work of organisation came at best but late 
because those who were fighting to break up the 
nation had their preparations well advanced. 
The first call for troops directed the governors 
of the loyal States to supply seventy-five thou- 



Beginning of the Civil War 79 

sand men for the restoration of the authority 
of the government. Massachusetts was the first 
State to respond by despatching to the front, 
within twenty-four hours of the publication of 
the call, its Sixth Regiment of Militia ; the Seventh 
of New York started twenty-foiir hours later. 
The history of the passage of the Sixth through 
Baltimore, of the attack upon the columns, and 
of the deaths, in the resulting affray, of soldiers 
and of citizens has often been told. When word 
came to Washington that Baltimore was obstruct- 
ing the passage of troops bound southward, troops 
called for the defence of the capital, the isolation 
of the government became sadly apparent. For 
a weary and anxious ten days, Lincoln and his 
associates were dreading from morning to morning 
the approach over the long bridge of the troops 
from Virginia whose camp-fires could be seen 
from the southern windows of the White House, 
and were looking anxiously northward for the 
arrival of the men on whose prompt service the 
safety of the capital was to depend. I have 
myself stood in Lincoln's old study, the windows 
of which overlook the Potomac, and have recalled 
to mind the fearful pressure of anxiety that must 
have weighed upon the President during those 
long days; as looking across the river, he could 



8o Abraham Lincoln 

trace by the smoke the picket lines of the Virginia 
troops. He must have thought of the possibiHty 
that he was to be the last President of the United 
States, that the torch handed over to him by the 
faltering hands of his predecessor was to expire 
while he was responsible for the flame. The 
immediate tension was finally broken by the 
appearance of the weary and battered companies 
of the Massachusetts troops and the arrival two 
days later, by the way of Annapolis, of the New 
York Seventh with an additional battalion from 
Boston. 

It was, however, not only in April, 1861, that 
the capital was in peril. The anxiety of the 
President (never for himself but only for his 
responsibilities) was to be repeated in July, 

1863, when Lee was in Maryland, and in July, 

1864, at the time of Early's raid. 

We may remember the peculiar burdens that 
come upon the commander-in-chief through his 
position at the rear of the armies he is directing. 
The rear of a battle is, even in the time of victory, 
a place of demoralising influence. It takes a 
man of strong nerve not to lose heart when the 
only people with whom he is in immediate contact 
are those who through disability or discouragement 
are making their way to the rear. The sutlers, the 



Beginning of the Civil War 8i 

teamsters, the wounded men, the panic-struck 
(and with the best of soldiers certain groups do lose 
heart from time to time, men who in another 
action when started right are ready to take their 
full share of the fighting) — these are the groups 
that in any action are streaming to the rear. 
It is impossible not to be affected by the under- 
mining of their spirits and of their hopefulness. 
If the battle is going wrongly, if in addition to 
those who are properly making their way to the 
rear, there come also bodies of troops pushed 
out of their position who have lost heart and who 
have lost faith in their commanders, the pressure 
towards demoralisation is almost irresistible. 

We may recall that during the entire four years 
of War, Lincoln, the commander-in-chief, was 
always in the rear. Difficult as was the task 
of the men who led columns into action, of the 
generals in the field who had the immediate 
responsibility for the direction of those columns 
and of the fighting line, it was in no way to be 
compared with the pressure and sadness of the 
burden of the man who stood back of all the lines, 
and to whom came all the discouragements, the 
complaints, the growls, the criticisms, the requisi- 
tions or demands for resources that were not 
available, the reports of disasters, sometimes ex- 



82 Abraham Lincoln 

aggerated and sometimes unduly smoothed over, 
the futile suggestions, the conflicting counsels, 
the indignant protests, the absurd schemes, the 
self-seeking applications, that poured into the 
White House from all points of the field of action 
and fiom all parts of the Border States and of 
the North. The man who during four years could 
stand that kind of battering and pressure and who, 
instead of having his hopefulness crushed out of 
him, instead of losing heart or power of direction 
or the full control of his responsibilities, steadily 
developed in patience, in strength, in width of 
nature, and in the wisdom of experience, so 
that he was able not only to keep heart firm 
and mind clear but to give to the soldiers in the 
front and to the nation behind the soldiers the 
influence of his great heart and clear mind and 
of his firm purpose, that man had within him the 
nature of the hero. Selected in time of need 
to bear the burdens of the nation, he was able 
so to fulfil his responsibilities that he takes place 
in the world's history as a leader of men. 

In July, 1 86 1, one of the special problems to 
be adjusted was the attitude of the Border States. 
Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia 
had not been willing at the outset to cast in 
their lot with the South, but they were not pre- 



Beginning of the Civil War 83 

pared to give any assured or active support to 
the authority of the national government. The 
Governor and the Legislature of Kentucky is- 
sued a proclamation of neutrality; they demanded 
that the soil of the State should be respected and 
that it should not be traversed by armed forces 
from either side. The Governor of Missouri, while 
not able to commit the State to secession, did 
have behind him what was possibly a majority 
of the citizens in the policy of attempting to 
prevent the Federal troops from entering the 
State. Maryland, or at least eastern Maryland, 
was sullen and antagonistic. Thousands of the 
Marylanders had in fact already made their 
way into Virginia for service with the Confederacy. 
On the other hand, there were also thousands 
of loyal citizens in these States who were pre- 
pared, under proper guidance and conservative 
management, to give their own direct aid to 
the cause of nationality. In the course of the 
succeeding two years, the Border States sent 
into the field in the Union ranks some fifty 
thousand men. At certain points of the conflict, 
the presence of these Union men of Kentucky, 
Tennessee, Maryland, and Missouri was the de- 
ciding factor. While these men were willing to 
fight for the Union, they were strongly opposed 



84 Abraham Lincoln 

to being used for the destruction of slavery and 
for the freeing of the blacks. The acceptance, 
therefore, of the policy that was pressed by the 
extreme anti-slavery group, for immediate action 
in regard to the freeing of the slaves, would have 
meant at once the dissatisfaction of this great 
body of loyalists important in number and 
particularly important on account of their geo- 
graphical position. Lincoln was able, although 
with no little difficulty, to hold back the pres- 
sure of Northern sentiment in regard to anti- 
slavery action until the course of the War had 
finally committed the loyalists of the Border 
States to the support of the Union. For the 
support of this policy, it became necessary to 
restrain certain of the leaders in the field who 
were mixing up civil and constitutional matters 
with their military responsibilities. Proclama- 
tions issued by Fremont in Missouri and later by 
Hunter in South Carolina, giving freedom to the 
slaves within the territory of their departments, 
were promptly and properly disavowed. Said 
Lincoln: "A general cannot be permitted to 
make laws for the district in which he happens to 
have an army." 

The difficulties in regard to the matter of slavery' 
during the war brought Lincoln into active cor- 



Beginning of the Civil War 85 

respondence with men like Beecher and Greeley, 
anti-slavery leaders who enjoyed a large share 
of popular confidence and support. In Novem- 
ber, 1 86 1, Lincoln says of Greeley: "His backing 
is as good as that of an army of one hundred 
thousand men." There could be no question of 
the earnest loyalty of Horace Greeley. Under 
his management, the New York Tribune had 
become a great force in the community. The 
paper represented perhaps more nearly than 
any paper in the country the purpose and the 
policy of the new Republican party. Unfortu- 
nately, Mr. Greeley's judgment and width of 
view did not develop with his years and with the 
increasing influence of his journal. He became 
unduly self-sufficient ; he undertook not only to 
lay down a policy for the guidance of the consti- 
tutional responsibilities of the government, but 
to dictate methods for the campaigns. The 
Tribune articles headed "On to Richmond!" 
while causing irritation to commanders in the 
field and confusion in the minds of quiet citizens 
at home, were finally classed with the things to 
be laughed at. In the later years of the War, 
the influence of the Tribune declined very con- 
siderably. Henry J. Raymond with his newly 
founded Times succeeded to some of the power 



86 Abraham Lincoln 

as a journalist that had been wielded by 
Greeley. 

In November, 1861, occurred an incident which 
for a time threatened a very grave international 
complication, a complication that would, if un- 
wisely handled, have determined the fate of the 
Republic. Early in the year, the Confederate 
government had sent certain representatives across 
the Atlantic to do what might be practicable to 
enlist the sympathies of European governments, 
or of individuals in these governments, to make 
a market for the Confederate cotton bonds, to 
arrange for the purchase of supplies for the army 
and navy, and to secure the circulation of docu- 
ments presenting the case of the South. Mr. 
Yancey of Mississippi was the best-known of 
this first group of emissaries. With him was 
associated Judge Mann of Virginia and it was Mann 
who in November, 1861, was in charge of the 
London office of the Confederacy. In this month, 
Mr. Davis appointed as successor to Mann, Mr. 
Mason of Virginia, to whom was given a more 
formal authorisation of action. At the same 
time, Judge Slidell of Louisiana was appointed 
as the representative to France. Mason and 
Slidell made their way to Jamaica and sailed 
from Jamaica to Liverpool in the British mail 



Beginning of the Civil War 87 

steamer Trent. Captain Charles Wilkes, in the 
United States frigate San Jacinto, had been 
watching the West Indies waters with reference 
to blockade runners and to Wilkes came know- 
ledge of the voyage of the two emissaries. Wilkes 
took the responsibility of stopping the Trent when 
she was a hundred miles or more out of Kingston 
and of taking from her as prisoners the two 
commissioners. The commissioners were brought 
to Boston and were there kept under arrest await- 
ing the decision from Washington as to their 
status. This stopping on the high seas of a 
British steamer brought out a great flood of 
indignation in Great Britain. It gave to Palmer- 
ston and Russell, who were at that time in charge 
of the government, the opportunity for which 
they had been looking to place on the side of 
the Confederacy the weight of the influence of 
Great Britain. It strengthened the hopes of Louis 
Napoleon for carrying out, in conjunction with 
Great Britain, a scheme that he had formiilated 
under which France was to secure a western 
empire in Mexico, leaving England to do what 
she might find convenient in the adjustment 
of the affairs of the so-called United States. 

The first report secured from the law officers 
of the Crown took the ground that the capture 



88 Abraham Lincoln 

was legal under international law and under the 
practice of Great Britain itself. This report 
was, however, pushed to one side, and Palmerston 
drafted a demand for the immediate siirrender 
of the commissioners. This demand was so 
worded that a self-respecting government would 
have had great difficulty in assenting to it without 
risk of forfeiting support with its own citizens. 
It was in fact intended to bring about a state of 
war. Under the wise influence of Prince Albert, 
Queen Victoria refused to give her approval to 
the document. It was reworded by Albert in 
such fashion as to give to the government of the 
United States an opportunity for adjustment 
without loss of dignity. Albert was clear in 
his mind that Great Britain ought not to be 
committed to war for the destruction of the great 
Republic of the West and for the establishment 
of a state of which the corner-stone was slavery. 
Fortunately, Victoria was quite prepared to ac- 
cept in this matter Albert's judgment. Palmer- 
ston protested and threatened resignation, but 
finally submitted. 

When the news of the capture of the commis- 
sioners came to Washington, Seward for once 
was in favour of a conservative rather than a 
truculent course of action. He advised that the 



Beginning of the Civil War 89 

commissioners should be surrendered at once 
rather than to leave to Great Britain the oppor- 
tunity for making a dictatorial demand. Lincoln 
admitted the risk of such demand and the dis- 
advantage of making the surrender under pressure, 
but he took the ground that if the United States 
waited for the British contention, a certain 
diplomatic advantage could be gained. When 
the demand came, Lincoln was able, with a re- 
wording (not for the first time) of Seward's de- 
spatch, to take the ground that the government 
of the United States was "well pleased that Her 
Majesty's government should have finally accepted 
the old-time American contention that vessels 
of peace should not be searched on the high 
seas by vessels of war. " It may be recalled that 
the exercise of the right of search had been one of 
the most important of the grievances which had 
brought about the War of 18 12 -18 14. In the dis- 
cussion of the Treaty of Ghent in 18 14, the English 
and American commissioners, while agreeing that 
this right of search must be given up, had not been 
able to arrive at a form of words, satisfactory to 
both parties, for its revocation. Both sets of com- 
missioners were very eager to bring their proceed- 
ings to a close. The Americans could of course 
not realise that if they had waited a few weeks 



90 Abraham Lincoln 

the news of the battle of New Orleans, fought 
in January, 1815, would have greatly strength- 
ened their position. It was finally agreed "as 
between gentlemen" that the right of search 
should be no longer exercised by Great Britain. 
This right was, however, not formally abrogated 
until December, 1861, nearly half a century later. 
This little diplomatic triumph smoothed over 
for the public of the North the annoyance of 
having to accept the British demand. It helped 
to strengthen the administration, which in this 
first year of the War was by no means sure of 
its foundations. It strengthened also the opinion 
of citizens generally in their estimate of the wise 
management and tact fulness of the President. 
Some of the most serious of the perplexities 
that came upon Lincoln during the first two years 
of the War were the result of the peculiar combina- 
tion of abilities and disabilities that characterised 
General McClellan. McClellan's work prior to 
the War had been that of an engineer. He had 
taken high rank at West Point and later, resign- 
ing from the army, had rendered distinguished 
service in civil engineering. At the time of the 
Lincoln-Douglas debates, McClellan was presi- 
dent of the Illinois Central Railroad. He was 
a close friend and backer of Douglas and he had 



Beginning of the Civil War 9 f 

done what was practicable with the all-important 
machinery of the railroad company to render 
comfortable the travelling of his candidate and 
to insure his success. Returning to the army 
with the opening of the War, he had won success 
in a brief campaign in Virginia in which he was 
opposed by a comparatively inexperienced officer 
and by a smaller force than his own. Placed in 
command of the army of the Potomac shortly 
after the Bull Run campaign, he had shown 
exceptional ability in bringing the troops into a 
state of organisation. He was probably the 
best man in the United States to fit an army for 
action. There were few engineer officers in the 
army who could have rendered better service 
in the shaping of fortifications or in the construc- 
tion of an entrenched position. He showed later 
that he was not a bad leader for a defeated army 
in the supervision of the retreat. He had, how- 
ever, no real capacity for leadership in an aggres- 
sive campaign. His disposition led him to be 
full of apprehension of what the other fellow 
was doing. He suffered literally from night- 
mares in which he exaggerated enormously the 
perils in his paths, making obstacles where none 
existed, multiplying by two or by three the troops 
against him, insisting upon the necessity of 



92 Abraham Lincoln 

providing not only for probable contingencies 
but for very impossible contingencies. He was 
never ready for an advance and he always felt 
proudly triumphant , after having come into touch 
with the enemy, that he had accomplished the 
task of saving his army. 

The only thing about which he was neither 
apprehensive nor doubtful was his ability as a 
leader, whether military or political. While he 
found it difficult to impress his will upon an 
opponent in the field, he was very sturdy with 
his pen in laying down the law to the Commander- 
in-chief (the President) and in emphasising the 
importance of his own views not only in things 
military but in regard to the whole policy of 
the government. The peculiarity about the 
nightmares and miscalculations of McClellan was 
that they persisted long after the data for their 
correction were available. In a book brought 
into print years after the War, when the Con- 
federate rosters were easily accessible in Wash- 
ington, McClellan did not hesitate to make the 
same statements in regard to the numbers of the 
Confederate forces opposed to him that he had 
brought into the long series of complaining letters 
to Lincoln in which he demanded reinforcements 
that did not exist. 



Beginning of the Civil War 93 

The records now show that at the time of the 
slow advance of McClellan's army by the Williams- 
burg Peninsula, General Magruder had been able, 
with a few thousand men and with dummy 
guns made of logs, to give the impression that a 
substantial army was blocking the way to Rich- 
mond. McClellan's advance was, therefore, made 
with the utmost ' ' conservatism, ' ' enabling General 
Johnston to collect back of Magruder the army 
that was finally to drive McClellan back to his 
base. It is further in evidence from the later 
records that when some weeks later General 
Johnston concentrated his army at Gaines's Mill 
upon Porter, who was separated from McClellan 
by the Chickahominy, there was but an inconsid- 
erable force between McClellan and Richmond. 

At the close of the seven days' retreat, J\IcClellan, 
who had with a magnificent army thrown away 
a series of positions, writes to Lincoln that he 
(Lincoln) " had sacrificed the army. " In another 
letter, McClellan lays dow^n the laws of a national 
policy with a completeness and a dictatorial 
utterance such as would hardly have been justi- 
fied if he had succeeded through his own military 
genius in bringing the War to a close, but which, 
coming from a defeated general, was ridiculous 
enough. Lincoln's correspondence with McClellan 



94 Abraham Lincoln 

brings out the infinite patience of the Presi- 
dent, and his desire to make sure that before 
putting the General to one side as a vainglorious 
incompetent, he had been allowed the fullest pos- 
sible test. Lincoln passes over without reference 
and apparently without thought the long series 
of impertinent impersonalities of ]\IcClellan. In 
this correspondence, as in all his correspondence, 
the great captain showed himself absolutely 
devoted to the cause he had in mind. Early 
in the year, months before the Peninsular cam- 
paign, when JVIcClellan had had the army in 
camp for a series of months without expressing 
the least intention of action, Lincoln had in 
talking with the Secretary of War used the expres- 
sion: "If General McClellan does not want to use 
the army just now, I would like to borrow it for a 
while. " That was as far as the Commander-in-chief 
ever went in criticism of the General in the field. 
While operations in Virginia, conducted by 
a vacillating and vainglorious engineer officer, 
gave little encouragement, something was being 
done to advance the cause of the Union in 
the West. In 1862, a young man named Grant, 
who had retiirned to the army and who had 
been trusted with the command of a few brigades, 
captured Fort Donelson and thus opened the 



Beginning of the Civil War 95 

Tennessee River to the advance of the army 
southward. The capture of Fort Donelson was 
rendered possible by the use of mortars and was 
the first occasion in the war in which mortars had 
been brought to bear. I chanced to come into 
touch with the record of the preparation of the 
mortars that were supplied to Grant's army at 
Cairo. Sometime in the nineties I was sojourning 
with the late Abram S. Hewitt at his home in 
Ringwood, New Jersey. I noticed, in looking out 
from the piazza, a mortar, properly mounted on a 
mortar-bed and encompassed by some yards of a 
great chain, placed on the slope overlooking 
the little valley below, as if to protect the house. 
I asked my host what was the history of this 
piece of ordnance. "Well," he said, "the chain 
you might have some personal interest in. It is 
a part of the chain your great-uncle Israel placed 
across the river at West Point for the purpose 
of blocking or at least of checking the passage 
of the British vessels. The chain was forged here 
in the Ringwood foundry and I have secured a 
part of it as a memento. The mortar was given 
to me by President Lincoln, as also was the mortar- 
bed." This report naturally brought out the 
further question as to the grounds for the gift. 
"I made this mortar-bed," said Hewitt, "together 



96 Abraham Lincoln 

with some others, and Lincoln was good enough 
to say that I had in this work rendered a service 
to the State, It was in December, 1861, when 
the expedition against Fort Donelson and Fort 
Henry was being organised at Fort Cairo under 
the leadership of General Grant. Grant reported 
that the field-pieces at his command would not 
be effective against the earthworks that were to be 
shelled and made requisition for mortars." The 
mortar I may explain to my unmilitary readers 
is a short carronade of large bore and with a 
comparatively short range. The mortar with 
a heavy charge throws its missile at a sharp 
angle upwards, so that, instead of attempting 
to go through an earthwork, it is thrown into the 
enclosure. The recoil from a mortar is very 
heavy, necessitating the construction of a foun- 
dation called a mortar-bed which is not only 
solid but which possesses a certain amount of 
elasticity through which the shock of the recoil 
is absorbed. It is only through the use of such 
a bed that a mortar can be fired from the deck 
of a vessel. Without such protection, the shock 
would smash through the deck and might send 
the craft to the bottom. 

The Ordnance Department reported to the 
Secretary of War and the Secretary to Lincoln that 



Beginning of the Civil War 97 

mortars were on hand but that no mortar-beds 
were available. It was one of the many cases in 
which the unpreparedness of the government had 
left a serious gap in the equipment. The further 
report was given to Lincoln that two or three 
months' time would be required to manufacture 
the thirty mortar-beds that were needed. A 
delay of any such period woiild have blocked 
the entire purpose of Grant's expedition. In his 
perplexity, Lincoln remembered that in his famous 
visit to New York two years before, he had been 
introduced to Mr. Hewitt, "a well-known iron 
merchant , " as " a man who does things. ' ' Lincoln 
telegraphed to Hewitt asking if Hewitt could 
make thirty mortar-beds and how long it would 
take. Hewitt told me that the message reached 
him on a Saturday evening at the house of a 
friend. He wired an acknowledgment with the 
word that he would send a report on the following 
day. Sunday morning he looked up the ordnance 
officer of New York for the purpose of ascertaining 
where the pattern mortar-bed was kept. "It was 
rather important, Major," said Hewitt to me, 
"that I should have an opportunity of examining 
this pattern for I had never seen a mortar-bed 
in my life, but this of course I did not admit to 
the ordnance officer." The pattern required was, 



gS Abraham Lincoln 

it seemed, in the armory at Springfield. Hewitt 
wired to Lincoln asking that the bed shotdd be 
forwarded by the night boat to him in New York. 
Hewitt and his men met the boat, secured the 
pattern bed, and gave some hours to puzzling 
over the construction. At noon on Monday, 
Hewitt wired to Lincoln that he could make thirty 
mortar-beds in thirty days. In another hour he 
received by wire instructions from Lincoln to 
go ahead. In twenty-eight days he had the 
thirty mortar-beds in readiness; and Tom Scott, 
who had at the time, very fortunately for the 
country, taken charge of the military transporta- 
tion, had provided thirty flat-cars for the transit 
of the mortar-beds to Cairo. The train was 
addressed to "U. S. Grant, Cairo," and each 
car contained a notification, painted in white 
on a black ground, "not to be switched on the 
penalty of death." That train got through 
and as other portions of the equipment had also 
been delayed , the mortars were not so very late. 
Six schooners, each equipped with a mortar, 
were hurried up the river to support the attack 
of the army on Fort Donelson. A first assault 
had been made and had failed. The field artillery 
was, as Grant had anticipated, ineffective against 
the earthworks, while the fire of the Confederate 



Beginning of the Civil War 99 

infantry, protected by their works, had proved 
most severe. The instant, however, that from 
behind a point on the river below the fort shells 
were thrown from the schooners into the inner 
circle of the fortifications, the Confederate com- 
mander, Floyd, recognised that the fort was 
untenable. He slipped away that night leaving 
his junior, General Buckner, to make terms with 
Grant, and those terms were "unconditional 
surrender," which were later so frequently con- 
nected with the initials of U. S. G. 

Buckner 's name comes again into history in a 
pleasant fashion. Years after the War, when 
General Grant had, through the rascality of a 
Wall Street "pirate," lost his entire savings, 
Buckner, himself a poor man, wrote begging 
Grant to accept as a loan, "to be repaid at his 
convenience," a check enclosed for one thousand 
dollars. Other friends came to the rescue of 
Grant, and through the earnings of his own pen, 
he was before his death able to make good all 
indebtedness and to leave a competency to his 
widow. The check sent by Buckner was not 
used, but the prompt friendliness was something 
not to be forgotten. 

Hewitt's mortar-beds were used again a few 
weeks later for the capture of Island Number 



loo Abraham Lincoln 

Ten and they also proved serviceable, used in the 
same fashion from the decks of schooners, in 
the capture of Forts Jackson and St. Philip 
which blocked the river below New Orleans. 
It was only through the fire from these schooners, 
which were moored behind a point on the river 
below the forts, that it was possible to reach the 
inner circle of the works. 

I asked Hewitt whether he had seen Lincoln 
after this matter of the mortar-beds. "Yes," 
said Hewitt, "I saw him a year later and Lincoln's 
action was characteristic. I was in Washington 
and thought it was proper to call and pay my 
respects. I was told on reaching the White 
House that it was late in the day and that the 
waiting-room was very full and that I probably 
should not be reached. 'Well,' I said, 'in that 
case, I will simply ask you to take in my card. * 
No sooner had the card been delivered than the 
door of the study opened and Lincoln appeared 
reaching out both hands. ' Where is Mr. Hewitt ? * 
he said ; 'I want to see, I want to thank, the man 
who does things. ' I sat with him for a time, 
a little nervous in connection with the number 
of people who were waiting outside, but Lincoln 
would not let me go. Finally he asked, 'What 
are you in Washington for?' 'Well, Mr. Lin- 



Beginning of the Civil War loi 

coin,' said I, *I have some business here. I want 
to get paid for those mortar-beds.' 'What?' 
said Lincoln, 'you have not yet got what the 
nation owes you? That is disgraceful.' He 
rang the bell violently and sent an aid for Secre- 
tary Stanton and when the Secretary appeared, 
he was questioned rather sharply. 'How about 
Mr. Hewitt's bill against the War Department? 
Why does he have to wait for his money ? ' ' Well, 
Mr. Lincoln, ' said Stanton, 'the order for those 
mortar-beds was given rather irregularly. It 
never passed through the War Department and 
consequently the account when rendered could 
not receive the approval of any ordnance officer, 
and until so approved could not be paid by the 
Treasury. ' * If , ' said Lincoln, ' I should write 
on that account an order to have it paid, do you 
suppose the Secretary of the Treasury would pay 
it?' 'I suppose that he would,' said Stanton. 
The account was sent for and Lincoln wrote 
at the bottom : ' Pay this bill now. A. Lincoln. ' 
'Now, Mr. Stanton,' said Lincoln, 'Mr. Hewitt 
has been very badly treated in this matter and 
I want you to take a little pains to see that he 
gets his money. I am going to ask you to go 
over to the Treasury with Mr. Hewitt and to get 
the proper signatures on this account so that 



I02 Abraham Lincoln 

Mr. Hewitt can carry a draft with him back to 
New York.' Stanton, rather reluctantly, ac- 
cepted the instruction and," said Hewitt, "he 
walked with me through the various departments 
of the Treasury until the final signature had been 
placed on the bill and I was able to exchange 
this for a Treasury warrant. I should," said 
Hewitt, "have been much pleased to retain the 
bUl with that signature of Lincoln beneath the 
words, 'Pay this now.' 

"Towards the end of the War," he continued, 
"when there was no further requirement for 
mortars, I wrote to Mr. Lincoln and asked whether 
I might buy a mortar with its bed. Lincoln 
replied promptly that he had directed the Ord- 
nance Department to send me mortar and bed 
with 'the compliments of the administration. ' 
I am puzzled to think," said Hewitt, "how that 
particular item in the accounts of the Ordnance 
Department was ever adjusted, but I am very 
glad to have this reminiscence of the War and 
of the President." 

Lincoln's relations with McClellan have already 
been touched upon. There would not be space 
in this paper to refer in detail to the action taken 
by Lincoln v/ith other army commanders East 
and West. The problem that confronted the 



Beginning of the Civil War 103 

Commander-in-chief of selecting the right leaders 
for this or that undertaking, and of promoting 
the men who gave evidence of the greater capacity 
that was required for the larger armies that were 
being placed in the field, was one of no little 
difficulty. The reader of history, looking back 
to-day, with the advantage of the full record of 
the careers of the various generals, is tempted 
to indulge in easy criticism of the blunders made 
by the President. Why did the President put 
up so long with the vaingloriousness and ineffec- 
tiveness of McClellan? Why should he have 
accepted even for one brief and unfortunate 
campaign the service of an incompetent like 
Pope? Why was a slow-minded closet-student 
like Halleck permitted to fritter away in the 
long-drawn-out operations against Corinth the 
advantage of position and of force that had been 
secured by the army of the West? Why was a 
political trickster like Butler, with no army 
experience, or a well-meaning politician like Banks 
with still less capacity for the management of 
troops, permitted to retain responsibilities in the 
field, making blunders that involved waste of 
life and of resources and the loss of campaigns? 
Why were not the real men like Sherman, Grant, 
Thomas, McPherson, Sheridan, and others brought 



I04 Abraham Lincoln 

more promptly into the important positions? 
Why was the army of the South permitted during 
the first two years of the War to have so large an 
advantage in skilled and enterprising leadership? 
A little reflection will show how unjust is the 
criticism implied through such questions. We 
know of the incapacity of the generals who failed 
and of the effectiveness of those who succeeded, 
only through the results of the campaigns them- 
selves. Lincoln could only study the men as he 
came to know about them and he experimented 
first with one and then with another, doing what 
seemed to be practicable to secure a natural 
selection and the survival of the fittest. Such 
watchful supervision and painstaking experi- 
menting was carried out with infinite patience 
and with an increasing knowledge both of the 
requirements and of the men fitted to fill the 
requirements. 

We must also recall that. Commander-in-chief 
as he was, Lincoln was not free to exercise without 
restriction his own increasingly valuable judg- 
ment in the appointment of the generals. It was 
necessary to give consideration to the opinion 
of the country, that is to say, to the individual 
judgments of the citizens whose loyal co-operation 
was absolutely essential for the support of the 



Beginning of the Civil War 105 

nation's cause. These opinions of the citizens 
were expressed sometimes through the appeals 
of earnestly loyal governors like Andrew of 
Massachusetts, or Curtin of Pennsylvania, and 
sometimes through the articles of a strenuous 
editor like Greeley, whose influence and support 
it was, of course, all important to retain. Gree- 
ley's absolute ignorance of military conditions 
did not prevent him from emphasising with the 
President and the public his very decided con- 
clusions in regard to the selection of men and 
the conduct of campaigns. In this all-perplexing 
problem of the shaping of campaigns, Lincoln 
had to consider the responsibilities of representa- 
tive government. The task would, of course, 
have been much easier if he had had power as 
an autocrat to act on his own decisions simply. 
The appointment of Butler and Banks was 
thought to be necessary for the purpose of meeting 
the views of the loyal citizens of so important a 
State as Massachusetts, and other appointments, 
the results of which were more or less unfortunate, 
may in like manner be traced to causes or influ- 
ences outside of a military or army policy. 

General Frank V. Greene, in a paper on Lincoln 
as Commander-in-chief, writes in regard to his 
capacity as a leader as follows : 



io6 Abraham Lincoln 

" As time goes on, Lincoln's fame looms ever larger 
and larger. Great statesman, astute politician, 
clear thinker, classic writer, master of men, kindly, 
lovable man, — these are his titles. To these must 
be added — military leader. Had he failed in that 
quality, the others would have been forgotten. Had 
peace been made on any terms but those of the 
surrender of the insurgent forces and the restoration 
of the Union, Lincoln's career would have been a 
colossal failure and the Emancipation Proclamation 
a subject of ridicule. The prime essential was mil- 
itary success. Lincoln gained it. Judged in the 
retrospect of nearly half a century, with his every 
written word now in print and with all the facts of 
the period brought out and placed in proper perspec- 
tive by the endless studies, discussions, and arguments 
of the intervening years, it becomes clear that, first 
and last and at all times during his Presidency, in 
military affairs his was not only the guiding but the 
controlling hand. " 

It is interesting, as the War progressed, to 
trace the development of Lincoln's own military 
judgment. He was always modest in regard to 
matters in which his experience was limited, 
and during the first twelve months in Washington, 
he had comparatively little to say in regard to 
the plaiming or even the supervision of campaigns. 
His letters, however, to McClellan and his later 



Beginning of the Civil War 107 

correspondence with Bumside, with Hooker, 
and with other commanders give evidence of a 
steadily developing intelligence in regard to 
larger military movements. History has shown 
that Lincoln's judgment in regard to the essential 
purpose of a campaign, and the best methods for 
carrying out such purpose, was in a large number 
of cases decidedly sounder than that of the 
general in the field. When he emphasised with 
McClellan that the true objective was the Con- 
federate army in the field and not the city of 
Richmond, he laid down a principle which seems 
to us elementary but to which McClellan had been 
persistently blinded. Lincoln writes to Hooker: 
"We have word that the head ot Lee's army is 
near Martinsburg in the Shenandoah Valley while 
you report that you have a substantial force 
still opposed to you on the Rappahannock. It 
appears, therefore that the line must be forty 
miles long. The animal is evidently very slim 
somewhere and it ought to be possible for 
you to cut it at some point." Hooker had the 
same information but did not draw the same 
inference. 

Apart from Lincoln's work in selecting, and in 
large measure in directing, the generals, he had 
a further important relation with the army as 



io8 Abraham Lincoln 

a whole. We are familiar with the term "the 
man behind the gun. " It is a tniism to say that 
the gun has little value whether for offence or for 
defence unless the man behind it possesses the 
right kind of spirit which will infuse and guide 
his purpose and his action with the gun. For the 
long years of the War, the Commander-in-chief 
was the man behind all the guns in the field. 
The men in the front came to have a realising 
sense of the infinite patience, the persistent 
hopefulness, the steadiness of spirit, the devoted 
watchfulness of the great captain in Washington. 
It was through the spirit of Lincoln that the 
spirit in the ranks was preserved during the long 
months of discouragement and the many defeats 
and retreats. The final advance of Grant which 
ended at Appomattox, and the tritmiphant march 
of Sherman which culminated in the surrender 
at Goldsborough of the last of the armies of 
the Confederacy, were the results of the inspira- 
tion, given alike to soldier and to general, from 
the patient and devoted soul of the nation's 
leader. 

In March, 1862, Lincoln received the news of 
the victory won at Pea Ridge, in Arkansas, by 
Curtis and Sigel, a battle which had lasted three 
days. The first day was a defeat and our troops 



Beginning of the Civil War 109 

were forced back; the fighting of the second 
resulted in what might be called a drawn battle; 
but on the third, our army broke its way through 
the enclosing lines, bringing the heavier loss to 
the Confederates, and regained its base. This 
battle was in a sense typical of much of the 
fighting of the War. It was one of a long series 
of fights which continued for more than one day. 
The history of the War presents many instances 
of battles that lasted two days, three days, four 
days, and in one case seven days. It was difficult 
to convince the American soldier, on either side 
of the line, that he was beaten. The general 
might lose his head, but the soldiers, in the larger 
number of cases, went on fighting until, with a 
new leader or with more intelligent dispositions 
on the part of the original leader, a first disaster 
had been repaired. There is no example in 
modern history of fighting of such stubborn 
character, or it is fairer to say, there was no 
example until the Russo-Japanese War in 
Manchuria. The record shows that European 
armies, when outgeneralled or outmanoeuvred, 
had the habit of retiring from the field, sometimes 
in good order, more frequently in a state of 
demoralisation. The American soldier fought 
the thing out because he thought the thing out. 



no Abraham Lincoln 

The patience and persistence of the soldier in 
the field was characteristic of, and, it may fairiy 
be claimed, was in part due to, the patience and 
persistence of the great leader in Washington. 



VI 

THE DARK DAYS OF 1862 

The dark days of 1862 were in April brightened 
by the all-important news that Admiral Farragut 
had succeeded in bringing the Federal fleet, or 
at least the leading vessels in this fleet, past the 
batteries of Forts St. Philip and Jackson on the 
Mississippi, and had compelled the surrender of 
New Orleans. The opening of the Mississippi 
River had naturally been included among the 
most essential things to be accomplished in the 
campaign for the restoration of the national 
authority. It was of first importance that the 
States of the North-west and the enormous 
contiguous territory which depended upon the 
Mississippi for its water connection with the outer 
world should not be cut off from the Gulf. The 
prophecy was in fact made more than once that 
in case the States of the South had succeeded 
in establishing their independence, there would 
have come into existence on the continent 
not two confederacies, but probably four. The 



112 Abraham Lincoln 

communities on the Pacific Coast would naturally 
have been tempted to set up for themselves, and 
a similar course might also naturally have been 
followed by the great States of the North-west 
whose interests were so closely bound up with 
the waterways running southward. It was essen- 
tial that no effort should be spared to bring the 
loyal States of the West into control of the line 
of the Mississippi. More than twelve months 
was still required after the capture of New Or- 
leans on the first of May, 1862, before the surren- 
der of Vicksburg to Grant and of Port Hudson 
to Banks removed the final barriers to the Federal 
control of the great river. The occupation of 
the river by the Federals was of importance 
in more ways than one. The States to the 
west of the river — Arkansas, Missouri, and 
Texas — were for the first two years of the War 
important sources of supplies for the food of the 
Confederate army. Corn on the cob or in bags 
was brought across the river by boats, while 
the herds of live cattle were made to swim the 
stream, and were then most frequently marched 
across country to the commissary depots of the 
several armies. After the fall of Port Hudson, 
the connection for such supplies was practically 
stopped ; although I may recall that even as late 



The Dark Days of 1862 113 

as 1864, the command to which I was attached 
had the opportunity of stopping the swimming 
across the Mississippi of a herd of cattle that 
was in transit for the army of General Joe 
Johnston. 

In April, 1862, just after the receipt by Lincoln 
of the disappointing news of the first repulse at 
Vicksburg, he finds time to write a little autograph 
note to a boy, "Master Crocker," with thanks 
for a present of a white rabbit that the youngster 
had sent to the President with the suggestion 
that perhaps the President had a boy who would 
be pleased with it. 

During the early part of 1862, Lincoln is giving 
renewed thought to the great problem of eman- 
cipation. He becomes more and more convinced 
that the success of the War calls for definite 
action on the part of the administration in the 
matter of slavery. He was, as before pointed 
out, anxious, not only as a matter of justice 
to loyal citizens, but on the ground of the im- 
portance of retaining for the national cause the 
support of the Border States, to act in such 
manner that the loyal citizens of these States 
should be exposed to a minimum loss and to the 
smallest possible risk of disaffection. In July, 
1862, Lincoln formulated a proposition for com- 



114 Abraham Lincoln 

pensated emancipation. It was his idea that 
the nation should make payment of an appraised 
value in freeing the slaves that were in the owner- 
ship of citizens who had remained loyal to the 
government. It was his belief that the funds 
required would be more than offset by the result 
in furthering the progress of the War. The 
daily expenditure of the government was at 
the time averaging about a million and a half 
dollars a day, and in 1864 it reached two million 
dollars a day. If the War could be shortened 
a few months, a sufficient amount of money would 
be saved to offset a very substantial payment to 
loyal citizens for the property rights in their 
slaves. 

The men of the Border States were, however, 
still too bound to the institution of slavery to 
be prepared to give their assent to any such 
plan. Congress was, natiirally, not ready to 
give support to such a policy unless it could be 
made clear that it was satisfactory to the people 
most concerned. The result of the unwise stub- 
bornness in this matter of the loyal citizens of 
Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Maryland 
was that they were finally obliged to surrender 
without compensation the property control in 
their slaves. When the plan for compensated 



The Dark Days of 1862 115 

emancipation had failed, Lincoln decided that 
the time had come for unconditional emancipa- 
tion. In July, 1862, he prepares the first 
draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. It 
was his judgment, which was shared by the 
majority of his Cabinet, that the issue of the 
proclamation should, however, be deferred until 
after some substantial victory by the armies 
of the North. It was undesirable to give to 
such a step the character of an utterance of 
despair or even of discouragement. It seemed 
evident, however, that the War had brought the 
country to the point at which slavery, the essential 
cause of the cleavage between the States, must 
be removed. The bringing to an end of the 
national responsibility for slavery would con- 
solidate national opinion throughout the States 
of the North and would also strengthen the 
hands of the friends of the Union in England 
where the charge had repeatedly been made that 
the North was fighting, not against slavery or 
for freedom of any kind, but for domination. 
The proclamation was held until after the battle 
of Antietam in September, 1862, and was then 
issued to take effect on the first of January, 
1863. It did produce the hoped-for results. 
The cause of the North was now placed on a 



ii6 Abraham Lincoln 

consistent foundation. It was made clear that 
when the fight for nationality had reached a 
successfid termination, there was to be no further 
national responsibility for the great crime against 
civilisation. The management of the contra- 
bands, who were from week to week making their 
way into the lines of the Northern armies, was 
simplified. There was no further question of 
holding coloured men subject to the possible 
claim of a possibly loyal master. The work of 
organising coloured troops, which had begun in 
Massachusetts some months earlier in the year, 
was now pressed forward with some measure of 
efficiency. Boston sent to the front the 54th 
and 55th Massachusetts regiments composed of 
coloured troops and led by such men as Shaw 
and Hallo well. The first South Carolina coloured 
regiment was raised and placed under the com- 
mand of Colonel Higginson. 

I had myself some experience in Louisiana 
with the work of moulding plantation hands into 
disciplined soldiers and I was surprised at the 
promptness of the transformation, A contra- 
band who made his way into the camp from the 
old plantation with the vague idea that he was 
going to secure freedom was often in appearance 
but an unpromising specimen out of which to 



The Dark Days of 1862 117 

make a soldier. He did not know how to hold 
himself upright or to look the other man in the 
face. His gait was shambly, his perceptions 
dull. It was difficult for him either to hear 
clearly, or to understand when heard, the word 
of instruction or command. When, however, 
the plantation rags had been disposed of and 
(possibly after a souse in the Mississippi) the 
contraband had been put into the blue uniform 
and had had the gun placed on his shoulder, 
he developed at once from a "chattel" to a man. 
He was still, for a time at least, clumsy and sham- 
bly. The understanding of the word of command 
did not come at once and his individual action, 
if by any chance he should be left to act alone, 
was, as a rule, less intelligent, less to be depended 
upon, than that of the white man. But he stood 
up straight in the garb of manhood, looked you 
fairly in the face, showed by his expression that 
he was anxious for the privilege of fighting for 
freedom and for citizenship, and in Louisiana, 
and throughout the whole territory of the War, 
every black regiment that came into engagement 
showed that it could be depended upon. Before 
the War was closed, some two hundred thousand 
negroes had been brought into the ranks of the 
Federal army and their service constituted a very 



ii8 Abraham Lincoln 

valuable factor in the final outcome of the cam- 
paigns. A battle like that at Milliken's Bend, 
Mississippi, inconsiderable in regard to the num- 
bers engaged, was of distinctive importance in 
showing what the black man was able and willing 
to do when brought under fire for the first time. 
A coloured regiment made up of men who only a 
few weeks before had been plantation hands, 
had been left on a point of the river to be picked 
up by an expected transport. The regiment 
was attacked by a Confederate force of double 
or treble the number, the Southerners believing 
that there would be no difficulty in driving into 
the river this group of recent slaves. On the 
first volley, practically all of the officers (who 
were white) were struck down and the loss with 
the troops was also very heavy. The negroes, 
who had but made a beginning with their educa- 
tion as soldiers, appeared, however, not to have 
learned anything about the conditions for sur- 
render and they simply fought on until no one 
was left standing. The percentage of loss to the 
numbers engaged was the heaviest of any action 
in the War. The Southerners, in their contempt 
for the possibility of negroes doing any real 
fighting, had in their rushing attack exposed 
themselves much and had themselves suffered 



The Dark Days of 1862 119 

seriously. When, in April, 1865, after the forcing 
back of Lee's lines, the hour came, so long waited 
for and so fiercely fought for, to take possession 
of Richmond, there was a certain poetic justice 
in allowing the negro division, commanded by 
General Weitzel , to head the column of advance. 

Through 1862, and later, we find much corre- 
spondence from Lincoln in regard to the punish- 
ment of deserters. The army penalty for desertion 
when the lines were in front of the enemy, was 
death. Lincoln found it very difficult, however, 
to approve of a sentence of death for any soldier. 
Again and again he writes, instructing the 
general in the field to withhold the execution 
until he, Lincoln, had had an opportunity of 
passing upon the case. There is a long series 
of instances in which, sometimes upon application 
from the mother, but more frequently through 
the personal impression gained by himself of the 
character of the delinquent, Lincoln decided to 
pardon youngsters who had, in his judgment, 
simply failed to realise their full responsibility 
as soldiers. Not a few of these men, permitted 
to resume their arms, gained distinction later 
for loyal service. 

In -December, 1862, Jefferson Davis issued an 
order which naturally attracted some attention, 



I20 Abraham Lincoln 

directing that General Benjamin F. Butler, when 
captured, should be "reserved for execution." 
Butler never fell into the hands of the Confederates 
and it is probable that if he had been taken pris- 
oner, the order would have remained an empty 
threat. From Lincoln came the necessary rejoin- 
der that a Confederate ofBcer of equal rank would 
be held as hostage for the safety of any Northern 
general who, as prisoner, might not be protected 
under the rules of war. 

Lincoln's correspondence during 1862, a year 
which was in many ways the most discouraging 
of the sad years of the war, shows how much 
he had to endure in the matter of pressure of 
unrequested advice and of undesired counsel 
from all kinds of voluntary advisers and active- 
minded citizens, all of whom believed that their 
views were important, if not essential, for the 
salvation of the state. In September, 1862, 
Lincoln writes to a friend : 

"I am approached with the most opposite 
opinions expressed on the part of religious men, 
each of whom is equally certain that he represents 
the divine will. " 

To one of these delegations of ministers, Lincoln 
gave a response which while homely in its language 
must have presented to his callers a vivid picture 



The Dark Days of 1862 121 

of the burdens that were being carried by the 
leader of the state . 

"Gentlemen," he said, "suppose all the property 
you possess were in gold, and you had placed it in 
the hands of Blondin to carry across the Niagara 
River on a rope. With slow, cautious, steady steps 
he walks the rope, bearing your all. Would you 
shake the cable and keep shouting to him, 'Blondin, 
stand up a little straighter! Blondin, stoop a little 
more; go a little faster; lean more to the south! 
Now lean a little more to north!. Would that be 
your behaviour in such an emergency? No, you 
would hold your breath, every one of you, as well as 
your tongues. You would keep your hands off until 
he was safe on the other side. " 

Another delegation, which had been urging 
some months in advance of what Lincoln believed 
to be the fitting time for the issuing of the Pro- 
clamation of Emancipation, called asking that 
there should be no further delay in the action. 
One of the ministers, as he was retiring, turned 
and said to Lincoln: "What you have said to 
us, Mr. President, compels me to say to you in 
reply that it is a message to you from our Divine 
Master, through me, commanding you, sir, to 
open the doors of bondage, that the slave may 
go free!" Lincoln replied: "That may be, sir, 



122 Abraham Lincoln 

for I have studied this question by night and by 
day, for weeks and for months, but if it is, as you 
say, a message from your Divine Master, is it not 
odd that the only channel He could send it by 
was that roundabout route through the wicked 
city of Chicago?" 

Another version of the story omits the reference 
to Chicago, and makes Lincoln's words : 

"I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say 
that if it is probable that God would reveal His 
will to others on a point so connected with my 
duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it 
directly to me. . . . Whatever shall appear 
to be God's will, I will do. " 

In September, 1862, General Lee carried his 
army into Maryland, threatening Baltimore and 
Washington. It is probable that the purpose of 
this invasion was more political than military. 
The Confederate correspondence shows that Davis 
was at the time hopeful of securing the interven- 
tion of Great Britain and France, and it was 
natural to assume that the prospects of such 
intervention would be furthered if it could be 
shown that the Southern army, instead of being 
engaged in the defence of its own capital, was 
actually threatening Washington and was possibly 
strong enough to advance farther north. 



The Dark Days of 1862 123 

General Pope had, as a result of his defeat at 
the second Bull Run, in July, 1862, lost the 
confidence of the President and of the country. 
The defeat alone would not necessarily have 
undermined his reputation, which had been that 
of an effective soldier. He had, however, the 
fatal quality, too common with active Americans, 
of talking too much, whether in speech or in the 
written word, of promising things that did not 
come off, and of emphasising his high opinion of 
his own capacity. Under the pressure of the 
new peril indicated by the presence of Lee's 
troops within a few miles of the capital, Lincoln 
put to one side his own grave doubts in regard 
to the effectiveness and trustworthiness of 
McClellan and gave McClellan one further op- 
portunity to prove his ability as a soldier. The 
personal reflections and aspersions against his 
Commander-in-chief of which McClellan had 
been guilty, weighed with Lincoln not at all; the 
President's sole thought was at this time, as 
always, how with the material available could 
the country best be served. 

McClellan had his chance (and to few men is it 
given to have more than one great opportunity) 
and again he threw it away. His army was 
stronger than that of Lee and he had the advan- 



124 Abraham Lincoln 

tage of position and (for the first time against 
this particular antagonist) of nearness to his 
base of supplies. Lee had been compelled to 
divide his army in order to get it promptly into 
position on the north side of the Potomac. 
McClellan's tardiness sacrificed Harper's Ferry 
(which, on September 1 5th, was actually surround- 
ed by Lee's advance) with the loss of twelve thou- 
sand prisoners. Through an exceptional piece of 
good fortune, there came into McClellan's hands a 
despatch showing the actual position of the 
different divisions of Lee's army and giving 
evidence that the two wings were so far separated 
that they could not be brought together within 
twenty-four hours. The history now makes 
clear that for twenty-four hours McClellan had 
the safety of Lee's army in his hands, but those 
precious hours were spent by McClellan in "getting 
ready," that is to say, in vacillating. 

Finally, there came the trifling success at South 
Mountain and the drawn battle of Antietam. 
Lee's army was permitted to recross the Potomac 
with all its trains and even with the captured 
prisoners, and McClellan lay waiting through the 
weeks for something to turn up. 

A letter written by Lincoln on the 13th of 
October shows a wonderfully accurate under- 



The Dark Days of 1862 125 

standing of military conditions, and throws light 
also upon the character and the methods of 
thought of the two men: 

" Are you not overcautious when you assume that 
you cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing? 
vShould you not claim to be at least his equal in prow- 
ess, and act upon the claim? As I understand, you 
telegraphed General Halleck that you cannot subsist 
your army at Winchester unless the railroad from 
Harper's Ferry to that point be put in working order. 
But the enemy does now subsist his army at Winches- 
ter, at a distance nearly twice as great as you would 
have to do, without the railroad last named. He 
now waggons from Culpeper Court House, which is 
just about twice as far as you would have to do 
from Harper's Ferry. He is certainly not more than 
half as well provided with waggons as you are . . 
Again, one of the standard maxims of war, as you 
know, is to * operate upon the enemy's communica- 
tions without exposing your own. ' You seem to 
act as if this applies against you, but cannot apply 
it in your favour. Change positions with the enemy, 
and think you not he would break your communica- 
tion with Richmond in twenty-four hours? , . . 
You are now nearer Richmond than the enemy is 
by the route you can and he must take. Why can 
you not reach there before him, unless you admit 
that he is more than your equal on a march? His 



126 Abraham Lincoln 

route is the arc of a circle, while yours is the chord. 
The roads are as good on your side as on his . . . 
If he should move northward, I would follow him 
closely, holding his communications. If he should 
prevent our seizing his communications and move 
towards Richmond, I would press closely to him, 
fight him, if a favourable opportunity should present, 
and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the 
inside track. I say 'Try'; if we never try, we shall 
never succeed. . . . If we cannot beat him when 
he bears the wastage of coming to us, we never can 
when we bear the wastage of going to him. , , . 
As we must beat him somewhere or fail finally, we 
can do it, if at all, easier near to us than far away. 
. . . It is all easy if our troops march as well 
as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say that they 
cannot do it." 

The patience of Lincoln and that of the coun- 
try behind Lincoln were at last exhausted. 
McClellan was ordered to report to his home in 
New Jersey and the General who had come to 
the front with such flourish of tnimpets and 
had undertaken to dictate a national policy at 
a time when he was not able to keep his own 
army in position, retires from the history of the 
War. 

The responsibility again comes to the weary 
Commander-in-chief of finding a leader who 



The Dark Days of 1862 127 

could lead, in whom the troops and the country 
would have confidence, and who could be trusted 
to do his simple duty as a general in the field 
without confusing his military responsibilities 
with political scheming. The choice first fell' 
upon Burnside. Bumside was neither ambitious 
nor self-confident. He was a good division 
general, but he doubted his ability for the general 
command. Burnside loyally accepts the task, 
does the best that was within his power and, 
pitted against a commander who was very much 
his superior in general capacity as well as in 
military skill, he fails. Once more has the 
President on his hands the serious problem of 
finding the right man. This time the commission 
was given to General Joseph Hooker. With the 
later records before us, it is easy to point out 
that this selection also was a blunder. There 
were better men in the group of major-generals. 
Reynolds, Meade, or Hancock would doubtless have 
made more effective use of the power of the army 
of the Potomac, but in January, 1863, the relative 
characters and abilities of these generals were not 
so easily to be determined. Lincoln's letter to 
Hooker was noteworthy, not only in the indica- 
tion that it gives of Hooker's character but as 
an example of the President's width of view and 



128 Abraham Lincoln 

of his method of coming into the right relation 
with men. He writes : 

"You have confidence in yourself, which is a 
valuable if not an indispensable quality. . . . 
I think, however, that during General Burnside's 
command of the army, you have taken counsel of 
your ambition and have thwarted him as much as 
you could, in which you did a great wrong to the 
country and to a most meritorious and honourable 
brother officer. I have heard of your recently saying 
that both the army and the government needed a 
dictator. Of course it was not for this but in spite 
of it that I have given you the command. Only 
those generals who gain success can set up as dictators. 
What I now ask of you is military success and I will 
risk the dictatorship. The government will support 
you to the best of its ability, which is neither more 
nor less than it has done and will do for all its com- 
manders. . . . Beware of rashness, but with en- 
ergy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us 
victories." 

Hooker, like Burnside, undoubtedly did the best 
that he could. He was a loyal patriot and had 
shown himself a good division commander. It is 
probable, however, that the limit of his ability as 
a general in the field was the management of an 
army corps; he seems to have been confused in 



The Dark Days of 1862 129 

the attempt to direct the movements of the larger 
body. At Chancellorsville, he was clearly out- 
witted by his opponents, Lee and Jackson. The 
men of the army of the Potomac fought steadily 
as always but with the discouraging feeling that 
the soldiers on the other side of the line had the 
advantage of better brain power behind them. 
It is humiliating to read in the life of Jackson 
the reply given by him to Lee when Lee questioned 
the safety of the famous march planned by 
Jackson across the front of the Federal line. 
Said Lee: "There are several points along the 
line of your proposed march at which your column 
could be taken in flank with disastrous results." 
"But, General Lee," replies Jackson, "we must 
surely in planning any military movements take 
into account the personality of the leaders to 
whom we are opposed. " 



VII 

THE THIRD AND CRUCIAL YEAR OF THE WAR 

Chancellorsville was fought and lost, and 
again, under political pressure from Richmond 
rather than with any hope of advantage on 
simple military lines, Lee leads his army to an 
invasion of the North. For this there were at 
the time several apparent advantages; the army 
of the Potomac had been twice beaten and, 
while by no means demoralised, was discouraged 
and no longer had faith in its commander. There 
was much inevitable disappointment throughout 
the North that, so far from making progress in 
the attempt to restore the authority of the 
government, the national troops were on the 
defensive but a few miles from the national 
capital. The Confederate correspondence from 
London and from Paris gave fresh hopes for the 
long expected intervention. 

Lee's army was cleverly withdrawn from 
Hooker's front and was carried through western 
Maryland into Pennsylvania by the old line of 

130 



Third and Crucial Year of War 131 

the Shenandoah Valley and across the Potomac 
at Falling Waters. Hooker reports to Lincoln 
under date of June 4th that the army or an army 
is still in his front on the line of the Rappahan- 
nock. Lincoln writes to Hooker under date of 
June 5th, "We have report that Lee's army 
is moving westward and that a large portion of 
it is already to the west of the Blue Ridge. The 
*buir [Lee's army] is across the fence and it 
surely ought to be possible to worry him." On 
June 14th, Lincoln writes again, reporting to 
Hooker that Lee with the body of his troops 
is approaching the Potomac at a point forty 
miles away from the line of the entrenchments 
on the Rappahannock. "The animal [Lee's 
army] is extended over a line of forty miles. It 
must be very slim somewhere. Can you not 
cut it?" The phrases are not in military form 
but they give evidence of sound military judg- 
ment. Hooker was unable to grasp the oppor- 
tunity, and realising this himself, he asked to be 
relieved. The troublesome and anxious honour 
of the command of the army now falls upon 
General Meade. He takes over the responsibility 
at a time when Lee's army is already safely 
across the Potomac and advancing northward, 
apparently towards Philadelphia. His troops 



132 Abraham Lincoln 

are more or less scattered and no definite plan 
of campaign appears to have been formulated. 
The events of the next three weeks constitute 
possibly the best known portion of the War. 
Meade shows good energy in breaking up his 
encampment along the Rappahannock and getting 
his column on to the road northward. For- 
tunately, the army of the Potomac for once has 
the advantage of the interior line so that Meade 
is able to place his army in a position that pro- 
tects at once Washington on the south-west, 
Baltimore on the east, and Philadelphia on the 
north-east. We can, however, picture to our- 
selves the anxiety that must have rested upon 
the Commander-in-chief in Washington during the 
weeks of the campaign and during the three days 
of the great battle which was fought on Northern 
soil and miles to the north of the Northern capital. 
If, on that critical third day of July, the Federal 
lines had been broken and the army disorganised, 
there was nothing that could prevent the national 
capital from coming into the control of Lee's 
army. The surrender of Washington meant the 
intervention of France and England, meant the 
failure of the attempt to preserve the nation's 
existence, meant that Abraham Lincoln would 
go down to history as the last President of the 



Third and Crucial Year of War 133 

United States, the President under whose leader- 
ship the national history had come to a close. 
But the Federal lines were not broken. The 
third day of Gettysburg made clear that with 
equality of position and with substantial equality 
in numbers there was no better fighting material 
in the army of the grey than in the army of the 
blue. The advance of Pickett's division to the 
crest of Cemetery Ridge marked the high tide 
of the Confederate cause. Longstreet's men were 
not able to prevail against the sturdy defence 
of Hancock's second corps and when, on the Fourth 
of July, Lee's army took up its line of retreat to 
the Potomac, leaving behind it thousands of dead 
and wounded, the calm judgment of Lee and his 
associates must have made clear to them that 
the cause of the Confederacy was lost. The army 
of Northern Virginia had shattered itself against 
the defences of the North, and there was for Lee 
no reserve line. For a long series of months to 
come, Lee, magnificent engineer officer that he 
was, and with a sturdy persistency which with- 
stood all disaster, was able to maintain defensive 
lines in the Wilderness, at Cold Harbor, and in 
front of Petersburg, but as his brigades crumbled 
away under the persistent and unceasing attacks 
of the army of the Potomac, he must have realised 



134 Abraham Lincoln 

long before the day of Appomattox that his task 
was impossible. What Gettysbtirg decided in 
the East was confirmed with equal emphasis 
by the fall of Vicksburg in the West. On the 
Fourth of July, 1863, the day on which Lee, 
defeated and discouraged, was taking his shat- 
tered army out of Pennsylvania, General Grant 
was placing the Stars and Stripes over the earth- 
works of Vicksburg. The Mississippi was now 
under the control of the Federalists from its 
soiirce to the mouth, and that portion of the 
Confederacy lying to the west of the river was 
cut off so that from this territory no further co- 
operation of importance could be rendered to the 
armies either of Johnston or of Lee. 

Lincoln writes to Grant after the fall of Vicks- 
burg giving, with his word of congratulation, 
the admission that he (Lincoln) had doubted 
the wisdom or the practicability of Grant's 
movement to the south of Vicksburg and inland 
to Jackson. "You were right," said Lincoln, 
"and I was wrong." 

On the 19th of November, 1863, comes the 
Gettysburg address, so eloquent in its simplicity. 
It is probable that no speaker in recorded history 
ever succeeded in putting into so few words so 
much feeling, such suggestive thought, and such 



Third and Crucial Year of War 135 

high idealism. The speech is one that children 
can understand and that the greatest minds 
must admire. 

There was disappointment that Meade had 
not shown more energy after Gettysburg in the 
pursuit of Lee's army and that some attempt, 
at least, had not been made to interfere with 
the retreat across the Potomac. Military critics 
have in fact pointed out that Meade had laid 
himself open to criticism in the management 
of the battle itself. At the time of the repulse 
of Pickett's charge, Meade had available at the 
left and in rear of his centre the sixth corps which 
had hardly been engaged on the previous two 
days, and which included some of the best fighting 
material in the army. It has been pointed out 
more than once that if that corps had been thrown 
in at once with a countercharge upon the heels 
of the retreating divisions of Longstreet, Lee's 
right must have been curled up and overwhelmed. 
If this had happened, Lee's army would have been 
so seriously shattered that its power for future 
service would have been inconsiderable. Meade 
was accepted as a good working general but the 
occasion demanded something more forcible in the 
way of leadership and, early in 1864, Lincoln sends 
for the man who by his success in the West had 



136 Abraham Lincoln 

won the hopeful confidence of the President and 
the people. 

Before this appointment of General-in-chief 
was given to General Grant, and he came to the 
East to take charge of the armies in Virginia, 
he had brought to a successful conclusion a 
dramatic campaign, of which Chattanooga was 
the centre. In September, 1863, General Rose- 
era ns, who had occupied Chattanooga, was de- 
feated some twenty miles to the south on the 
field of Chickamauga, a defeat which was the re- 
sult of too much confidence on the part of the 
Federal commander, who in pressing his advance 
had unwisely separated the great divisions of his 
army, and of excellent skill and enterprise on 
the part of the Confederate commander. General 
Bragg. If the troops of Rosecrans had not been 
veterans, and if the right wing had not been under 
the immediate command of so sturdy and uncon- 
quered a veteran as General Thomas, the defeat 
might have become a rout. As it was, the army 
retreated with some discouragement but in good 
fighting force, to the lines of Chattanooga. By 
skilfid disposition of his forces across the lines 
of connection between Chattanooga and the 
base of supplies. General Bragg brought the 
Federals almost to the point of starvation, and 



Third and Crucial Year of War 137 

there was grave risk that through the necessary- 
falling back of the army to secure supplies, the 
whole advantage of the previous year's campaign 
might be lost. Grant was placed in charge of the 
forces in Chattanooga, and by a good management 
of the resources available, he succeeded in reopen- 
ing the river and what became known as "the 
cracker line," and in November, 1863, in the 
dramatic battles of Lookout Mountain, fought 
more immediately by General Hooker, and of 
Missionary Ridge, the troops of which were 
under the direct command of General Sherman, 
overwhelmed the lines of Bragg, and pressed his 
forces back into a more or less disorderly retreat. 
An important factor in the defeat of Bragg was 
the detaching from his army of the corps under 
Longstreet which had been sent to Knoxville 
in a futile attempt to crush Burnside and to 
reconquer East Tennessee for the Confederacy. 
This plan, chiefly political in purpose, was said 
to have originated with President Davis. The 
armies of the West were now placed under the 
command of General Sherman, and early in 1864, 
Grant was brought to Virginia to take up the 
perplexing problem of overcoming the sturdy 
veterans of General Lee. 

The first action of Grant as commander of all 



138 Abraham Lincoln 

the armies in the field was to concentrate all the 
available forces against the two chief armies of 
the Confederacy. The old policy of occupying 
outlying territory for the sake of making a show 
of political authority was given up. If Johnston 
in the West and Lee in the East could be crushed, 
the national authority would be restored in due 
season, and that was the only way in which it 
could be restored. Troops were gathered in 
from Missouri and Arkansas and Louisiana and 
were placed under the command of Sherman for 
use in the final effort of breaking through the 
centre of the Confederacy, while in the East 
nothing was neglected on the part of the new 
administration to secure for the direction of the 
new commander all resources available of men 
and of supplies. 

Grant now finds himself pitted against the 
first soldier of the continent, the leader who is to 
go down to history as probably the greatest 
soldier that America has ever produced. Lee's 
military career is a wonderful example of a 
combination of brilliancy, daring ingenuity of 
plan, promptness of action, and patient persist- 
ence under all kinds of discouragement, but it 
was not only through these qualities that it was 
possible for him to retain control, through three 



Third and Crucial Year of War 139 

years of heavy fighting, of the territory of Virginia, 
which came to be the chief bulwark of the Con- 
federacy. Lee's high character, sweetness of 
nature, and unselfish integrity of purpose had 
impressed themselves not only upon the Con- 
federate administration which had given him 
the command but upon every soldier in that 
command. For the army of Northern Virginia 
Lee was the man behind the guns just as Lincoln 
came to be for all the men in blue. There never 
was a more devoted army and there probably 
never was a better handled army than that with 
which Lee defended for three years the lines across 
Northern Virginia and the remnants of which 
were finally surrendered at Appomattox. 

Grant might well have felt concerned with such 
an opponent in front of him. He had on his 
hands (as had been the almost uniform condition 
for the army of the Potomac) the disadvantage 
of position. His advance must be made from 
exterior lines and nearly every attack was to be 
against well entrenched positions that had been 
first selected years back and had been strength- 
ened from season to season. On the other hand, 
Grant was able to depend upon the loyal support 
of the administration through which came to 
his army the full advantage of the great resources 



I40 Abraham Lincoln 

of the North. His ranks as depleted were filled 
up, his commissary trains need never be long 
unsupplied, his ammunition waggons were always 
equipped. For Lee, during the years following 
the Gettysburg battle, the problem was unending 
and increasing: How should the troops be fed 
and whence should they secure the fresh supplies 
of ammunition ? 

Between Grant and Lincoln there came to be 
perfect sympathy of thought and action. The 
men had in their nature (though not in their 
mental equipment) much in common. Grant 
carries his army through the spring of 1864, 
across the much fought over territory, marching 
and fighting from day to day towards the south- 
west. The effort is always to outflank Lee's 
right, getting in between him and his base at 
Richmond, but after each fight, Lee's army al- 
ways bars the way. Marching out of the Wilder- 
ness after seven days' fierce struggle. Grant 
still finds the line of grey blocking his path to 
Richmond. The army of the Potomac had been 
marching and fighting without break for weeks. 
There had been but little sleep, and the food in 
the trains was often far out of the reach of the 
men in the fighting line. Men and officers were 
alike exhausted. While advantages had been 



Third and Crucial Year of War 141 

gained at one point or another along the line, 
and while it was certain that the opposing army- 
had also suffered severely, there had been no 
conclusive successes to inspirit the troops with 
the feeling that they were to seize victory out 
of the campaign. 

In emerging from the Wilderness, the head of 
the column reached the cross-roads the left fork 
of which led back to the Potomac and the right 
fork to Richmond or to Petersburg. In the 
previous campaigns, the army of the Potomac, 
after doing its share of plucky fighting and 
taking more than its share of discouragement, 
had at such a point been withdrawn for rest and 
recuperation. It was not an unnatural expectation 
that this course would be taken in the present 
campaign. The road to the right meant further 
fatigue and further continuous fighting for men 
who were already exhausted. In the leading 
brigade it was only the brigade commander and 
the adjutant who had knowledge of the instruc- 
tions for the line of march. When, with a wave 
of the hand of the adjutant, the guidon flag of 
the brigade was carried to the right and the 
head of the column was set towards Richmond, 
a shout went up from the men marching behind 
the guidon. It was an utterance not of dis- 



142 Abraham Lincoln 

couragement but of enthusiasm. Exhausting as 
the campaign had been, the men in the ranks 
preferred to fight it out then and to get through 
with it. Old soldiers as they were, they were 
able to understand the actual issue of the contest. 
Their plucky opponents were as exhausted as 
themselves and possibly even more exhausted. 
It was only through the hammering of Lee's 
diminishing army out of existence that the War 
could be brought to a close. The enthusiastic 
shout of satisfaction rolled through the long 
column reaching twenty miles back, as the 
news passed from brigade to brigade that the 
army was not to be withdrawn but was, as Grant's 
report to Lincoln was worded, "to fight it out 
on this line if it took all summer." When this 
report reached Lincoln, he felt that the selection 
of Grant as Lieutenant-General had been justified. 
He said: "We need this man. He fights. " 

In July, 1864, Washington is once more within 
reach if not of the invader at least of the raider. 
The Federal forces had been concentrated in 
Grant's lines along the James, and General Jubal 
Early, one of the most energetic fighters of the 
Southern army, tempted by the apparently 
unprotected condition of the capital, dashed 
across the Potomac on a raid that became famous. 



Third and Crucial Year of War 143 

It is probable that in this undertaking, as in 
some of the other movements that have been 
referred to on the part of the Southern leaders, 
the purpose was as much political as military. 
Early's force of from fifteen to sixteen thousand 
men was, of course, in no way strong enough to be 
an army of invasion. The best success for which 
he could hope would be, in breaking through the 
defences of Washington,to hold the capital for a day 
or even a few hours. The capture of Washington 
in 1864, as in 1863 or in 1862, would in all proba- 
bility have brought about the long-hoped-for in- 
tervention of France and England. General Lew 
Wallace, whose name became known in the years 
after the War through some noteworthy romances, 
Ben Hur and The Fair God, and who was in com- 
mand of a division of troops stationed west of 
Washington, and composed in part of loyal 
Marylanders and in part of convalescents who 
were about to be returned to the front, fell back 
before Early's advance to Monocacy Creek. He 
disposed his thin line cleverly in the thickets 
on the east side of the creek in such fashion as 
to give the impression of a force of some size 
with an advance line of skirmishers. Early's 
advance was checked for some hours before he 
realised that there was nothing of importance 



144 Abraham Lincoln 

in front of him; when Wallace's division was 
promptly overwhelmed and scattered. The few 
hours that had thus been saved were, however, 
of first importance for the safety of Washington. 
Early reached the outer lines of the fortifications 
of the capital some time after sunset. His im- 
mediate problem was to discover whether the 
troops which were, as he knew, being hurried 
up from the army of the James, had reached 
Washington or whether the capital was still 
under the protection only of its so-called home- 
guard of veteran reserves. These reserves were 
made up of men more or less crippled and unfit 
for work in the field but who were still able to 
do service on fortifications. They comprised in 
all about six thousand men and were under the 
command of Colonel Wisewell. The force was 
strengthened somewhat that night by the addition 
of all of the male nurses from the hospitals 
(themselves convalescents) who were able to 
bear arms. That night the women nurses, who 
had already been in attendance during the hours 
of the day, had to render double service, Lincoln 
had himself in the afternoon stood on the works 
watching the dust of the Confederate advance. 
Once more there came to the President who had 
in his hands the responsibility for the direction 



Third and Crucial Year of War 145 

of the War the bitterness of the feeling, if not of 
possible failure, at least of immediate mortification. 
He knew that within twenty-four or thirty-six 
hours Washington could depend upon receiving 
the troops that were being hurried up from Grant's 
army, but he also realised what enormous mis- 
chief might be brought about by even a mo- 
mentary occupation of the national capital by 
Confederate troops. I had some personal interest 
in this side campaign. The 19th army corps, 
to which my own regiment belonged, had been 
brought from Louisiana to Virginia and had been 
landed on the James River to strengthen the 
ranks of General Butler. There had not been 
time to assign to us posts in the trenches and 
we had, in fact, not even been placed in position. 
We were more nearly in marching order than any 
other troops available and it was therefore the 
divisions of the 1 9th army corps that were selected 
to be hurried up to Washington. To these were 
added two divisions of the 6th corps. 

Colonel Wisewell, commanding the defences 
of the city, realised the nature of his problem. 
He had got to hold the lines of Washington, 
cost what it might, until the arrival of the troops 
from Grant. He took the bold step of placing 
on the picket line that night every man within 



146 Abraham Lincoln 

reach, or at least every loyal man within reach 
(for plenty of the men in Washington were 
looking and hoping for the success of the South). 
The instructions usually given to pickets were 
in this instance reversed. The men were ordered, 
in place of keeping their positions hidden and 
of maintaining absolute quiet, to move from post 
to post along the whole line, and they were also 
ordered, without any reference to the saving 
of ammunition, to shoot off their carbines on the 
least possible pretext and without pretext. The 
armories were then beginning to send to the front 
Sharp's repeating carbines. The invention of 
breech-loading rifles came too late to be of service 
to the infantry on either side, but during the 
last year of the War, certain brigades of cavalry 
were armed with Sharp's breech-loaders. The 
infantry weapon used through the War by the 
armies of the North as by those of the South 
was the muzzle-loading rifle which bore the name 
on our side of the Springfield and on the Con- 
federate side of the Enfield, The larger portion 
of the Northern rifles were manufactured in 
Springfield, Massachusetts, while the Southern 
rifles, in great part imported from England, took 
their name from the English factory. It was of 
convenience for both sides that the two rifles 



Third and Crucial Year of War 147 

were practically identical so that captured pieces 
and captured ammunition could be interchanged 
without difficulty. 

Early's skirmish line was instructed early in 
the night to "feel" the Federal pickets, an in- 
struction which resulted in a perfect blaze of 
carbine fire from Wisewell's men. The report 
that went to Early was that the picket line must 
be about six thousand strong. The conclusion on 
the part of the old Confederate commander was 
that the troops from the army of the Potomac must 
have reached the city. If that were true, there 
was, of course, no chance that on the following 
day he could break through the entrenchments, 
while there was considerable risk that his retreat 
to the Shenandoah might be cut off. Early 
the next morning, therefore, the disappointed 
Early led his men back to Falling Waters. 

I happened during the following winter, when 
in prison in Danville, to meet a Confederate 
lieutenant who had been on Early's staff and 
who had lost an arm in this little campaign. 
He reported that when Early, on recrossing the 
Potomac, learned that he had had Washington 
in his grasp and that the divisions marching to 
its relief did not arrive and could not have arrived 
for another twenty-four hours, he was about the 



148 Abraham Lincoln 

maddest Early that the heutenant had ever 
seen. "And," added the heutenant, "when 
Early was angry, the atmosphere became 
blue." 



VIII 

THE FINAL CAMPAIGN 

After this close escape, it was clear to Grant 
as it had been clear to Lincoln that whatever 
forces were concentrated before Petersburg, the 
line of advance for Confederate invaders through 
the Shenandoah must be blocked. General Sheri- 
dan was placed in charge of the army of the Shenan- 
doah and the 19th corps, instead of returning 
to the trenches of the James, marched on from 
Washington to Martinsburg and Winchester. 

In September, the commander in Washington 
had the satisfaction of hearing that his old as- 
sailant Early had been sent "whirling through 
Winchester" by the fierce advance of Sheridan. 
Lincoln recognised the possibility that Early 
might refuse to stay defeated and might make 
use, as had so often before been done by Confed- 
erate commanders in the Valley, of the short 
interior line to secure reinforcements from Rich- 
mond and to make a fresh attack. On the 

29th of September, twenty days before this 

149 



^ 



ISO Abraham Lincoln 

attack came off, Lincoln writes to Grant: "Lee 
may be planning to reinforce Early. Care should 
be taken to trace any movement of troops west- 
ward. " On the 19th of October, the persistent 
old fighter Early, not willing to acknowledge 
himself beaten and understanding that he had 
to do with an army that for the moment did not 
have the advantage of Sheridan's leadership, 
made his plucky, and for the time successful, 
fight at Cedar Creek. The arrival of Sheridan 
at the critical hour in the afternoon of the 19th 
of October did not, as has sometimes been stated, 
check the retreat of a demoralised army. Sheri- 
dan found his army driven back, to be sure, from 
its first position, but in occupation of a well 
supported line across the pike from which had 
just been thrown back the last attack made by 
Early's advance. It was Sheridan however who 
decided not only that the battle which had been 
lost could be regained, but that the work could 
be done to best advantage right away on that 
day, and it was Sheridan who led his troops through 
the too short hours of the October afternoon 
back to their original position from which before 
dark they were able to push Early's fatigued 
fighters across Cedar Creek southward. Lincoln 
had found another man who could fight. He 



The Final Campaign 151 

was beginning to be able to put trust in leaders 
who, instead of having to be replaced, were with 
each campaign gathering fresh experience and 
more effective capacity. 

From the West also came reports, in this autumn 
of 1864, from a fighting general. Sherman had 
carried the army, after its success at Chattanooga, 
through the long line of advance to Atlanta, by 
outflanking movements against Joe Johnston, the 
Fabius of the Confederacy, and when Johnston 
had been replaced by the headstrong Hood, had 
promptly taken advantage of Hood's rashness to 
shatter the organisation of the army of Georgia. 
The capture of Atlanta in September, 1864, 
brought to Lincoln in Washington and to the 
North the feeling of certainty that the days of 
the Confederacy were numbered. 

The second invasion of Tennessee by the army 
of Hood, rendered possible by the march of 
Sherman to the sea, appeared for the moment 
to threaten the control that had been secured 
of the all-important region of which Nashville 
was the centre, but Hood's march could only be 
described as daring but futile. He had no base 
and no supplies. His advance did some desperate 
fighting at the battle of Franklin and succeeded 
in driving back the rear-guard of Thomas's army, 



I $2 Abraham Lincoln 

ably commanded by General Schofield, but the 
Confederate ranks were so seriously shattered 
that when they took position in front of Nash- 
ville they no longer had adequate strength to 
make the siege of the city serious even as a 
threat. Thomas had only to wait until his own 
preparations were completed and then, on the 
same day in December on which Sherman was 
entering Savannah, Thomas, so to speak, "took 
possession" of Hood's army. After the fight at 
Nashville, there were left of the Confederate 
invaders only a few scattered divisions. 

It was just before the news of the victory at 
Nashville that Lincoln made time to write the 
letter to Mrs. Bixby whose name comes into 
history as an illustration of the thoughtful 
sympathy of the great captain : 

" I have been shown in the files of the War Depart- 
ment a statement of the adjutant-general of Massa- 
chusetts that you are the mother of five sons who 
died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how 
weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which 
should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a 
loss so overwhelming, but I cannot refrain from 
tendering to you the consolation that may be found 
in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. 
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the 



The Final Campaign 153 

anguish of your bereavement and leave you only 
the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the 
pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a 
sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. " 

In March, 1864, Lincoln writes to Grant: 
"New York votes to give votes to the soldiers. 
Tell the soldiers." The decision of New York 
in regard to the collection from the soldiers in 
each field of the votes for the coming Presidential 
election was in line with that arrived at by all 
of the States. The plan presented difficulties 
and, in connection with the work of special com- 
missioners, it involved also expense. It was, 
however, on every ground desirable that the men 
who were risking their lives in defence of the 
nation should be given the opportunity of taking 
part in the selection of the nation's leader, who 
was also under the Constitution the commander- 
in-chief of the armies in the field. The votes of 
some fottr hundred thousand men constituted also 
an important factor in the election itself. I am 
not sure that the attempt was ever made to 
separate and classify the soldiers' vote but it is 
probable that although the Democratic candidate 
was McClellan, a soldier who had won the affection 
of the men serving under him, and the opposing 
candidate was a civilian, a substantial majority 



154 Abraham Lincoln 

of the vote of the soldiers was given to Lincoln. 

Secretary Chase had fallen into the habit of 
emphasising what he believed to be his indispen- 
sability in the Cabinet by threatening to resign, 
or even by submitting a resignation, whenever 
his suggestions or conclusions met with opposition. 
These threats had been received with patience 
up to the point when patience seemed to be no 
longer a virtue; but finally, when (in May, 1864) 
such a resignation was tendered under some 
aggravation of opposition or of criticism, very 
much to Chase's surprise the resignation was 
accepted. 

The Secretary had had in train for some months 
active plans for becoming the Republican candidate 
for the Presidential campaign of 1864. Evidence 
had from time to time during the preceding year 
been brought to Lincoln of Chase's antagonism 
and of his hopes of securing the leadership of 
the party. Chase's opposition to certain of 
Lincoln's policies was doubtless honest enough. 
He had brought himself to believe that Lincoln 
did not possess the force and the qualities required 
to bring the War to a close. He had also con- 
vinced himself that he. Chase, was the man, 
and possibly was the only man, who was fitted 
to meet the special requirements of the task. 



The Final Campaign 155 

Mr. Chase did possess the confidence of the more 
extreme of the anti-slavery groups throughout 
the country. His administration of the Treasury 
had been able and valuable, but the increasing 
difficulty that had been found in keeping the 
Secretary of the Treasury in harmonious relations 
with the other members of the administration 
caused his retirement to be on the whole a relief. 
Lincoln came to the conclusion that more effective 
service could be secured from some other man, 
even if possessing less ability, whose tempera- 
ment made it possible for him to work in co- 
operation. The unexpected acceptance of the 
resignation caused to Chase and to Chase's friends 
no little bitterness, which found vent in sharp 
criticisms of the President. Neither bitterness 
nor criticisms could, however, prevent Lincoln 
from retaining a cordial appreciation for the 
abilities and the patriotism of the man, and, 
later in the year, Lincoln sent in his nomination 
as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Chase 
himself, in his lack of capacity to appreciate the 
self-forgetfulness of Lincoln's nature, was probably 
more surprised by his nomination as Chief Justice 
than he had been by the acceptance of his resigna- 
tion as Secretary of the Treasury. 

In July, 1864, comes a fresh risk of international 



156 Abraham Lincoln 

complications through the invasion of Mexico 
by a French army commanded by Bazaine, seven 
years later to be known as the (more or less) hero 
of Metz. Louis Napoleon had been unwilling 
to give up his dream of a French empire, or of an 
empire instituted under French influence, in 
the Western Hemisphere. He was still hopeful, 
if not confident, that the United States would not 
be able to maintain its existence; and he felt 
assured that if the Southern Confederacy should 
finally be established with the friendly co-opera- 
tion of France, he would be left unmolested to 
carry out his own schemes in Mexico. He had 
induced an honest-minded but not very clear- 
headed Prince, Maximilian, the brother of the 
Emperor of Austria, to accept a throne in 
Mexico to be established by French bayonets, 
and which, as the result showed, could sustain 
itself only while those bayonets were available. 
The presence of French troops on American soil 
brought fresh anxieties to the administration; 
but it was recognised that nothing could be done 
for the moment, and Lincoln and his advisers 
were hopeful that the Mexicans, before their 
capital had been taken possession of by the 
invader, would be able to maintain some national 
government until, with the successful close of 



The Final Campaign 157 

its own War, the United States could come to 
the defence of the sister republic. 

The extreme anti-slavery group of the Repub- 
lican party had, as indicated, never been fully 
satisfied with the thoroughness of the anti- 
slavery policy of the administration and Mr. 
Chase retained until the action of the convention 
in June the hope that he might through the 
influence of this group secure the Presidency. 
Lincoln remarks in connection with this candidacy : 
"If Chase becomes President, all right. I hope 
we may never have a worse man. ' ' From the 
more conservative wing of the Republican party 
came suggestions as to the nomination of 
Grant and this plan brought from Lincoln the 
remark: "If Grant takes Richmond, by all 
means let him have the nomination." When the 
delegates came together, however, in Chicago, 
it was evident that, representing as they did 
the sober and well-thought-out convictions of 
the people, no candidacy but that of Lincoln 
could secure consideration and his nomination 
was practically unanimous. 

The election in November gave evidence that, 
even in the midst of civil war, a people's govern- 
ment can sustain the responsibility of a national 
election. The large popular majorities in nearly 



158 Abraham Lincoln 

all of the voting States constituted not only a 
cordial recognition of the service that was being 
rendered by Lincoln and by Lincoln's adminis- 
tration, but a substantial assurance that the cause 
of nationality was to be sustained with all the 
resources of the nation. The Presidential election 
of this year gave the final blow to the hopes of the 
Confederacy. 

I had myself a part in a very small division 
of this election, a division which could have no 
effect in the final gathering of the votes, but which 
was in a way typical of the spirit of the army. 
On the 6th of November, 1864, I was in Libby 
Prison, having been captured at the battle of 
Cedar Creek in October. It was decided to hold 
a Presidential election in the prison, although 
some of us were rather doubtful as to the policy 
and anxious in regard to the result. The exchange 
of prisoners had been blocked for nearly a year 
on the ground of the refusal on the part of the 
South to exchange the coloured troops or white 
officers who held commissions in coloured regi- 
ments. Lincoln took the ground, very properly, 
that all of the nation's soldiers must be treated 
alike and must be protected by a uniform policy. 
Until the coloured troops should be included in 
the exchange, "there can," said Lincoln, "be no 



The Final Campaign 159 

exchanging of prisoners." This decision, while 
sound, just, and necessary, brought, naturally, 
a good deal of dissatisfaction to the men in prison 
and to their friends at home. When I reached 
Libby in October, I found there men who had been 
prisoners for six or seven months and who (as 
far as they lived to get out) were to be prisoners 
for five months more. Through the winter of 
1864-65, the illness and mortality in the Virginia 
prisons of Libby and Danville were very severe. 
It was in fact a stupid barbarity on the part of the 
Confederate authorities to keep any prisoners 
in Richmond during that last winter of the War. 
It was not easy to secure by the two lines of road 
(one of which was continually being cut by our 
troops) sufficient supplies for Lee's army. It was 
difficult to bring from the granaries farther south, 
in addition to the supplies required for the army, 
food for the inhabitants of the town. It was 
inevitable under the circumstances that the 
prisoners should be neglected and that in addi- 
tion to the deaths from cold (the blankets, the 
overcoats, and the shoes had been taken from the 
prisoners because they were needed by the rebel 
troops) there should be further deaths from 
starvation. 

It was not unnatural that under such conditions, 



i6o Abraham Lincoln 

the prisoners should have ground not only for 
bitter indignation with the prison authorities, 
but for discontent with their own administration. 
One may in fact be surprised that starving and 
dying men should have retained any assured 
spirit of loyalty. When the vote for President 
came to be counted, we found that we had elected 
Lincoln by more than three to one. The soldiers 
felt that Lincoln was the man behind the guns. 
The prison votes, naturally enough, reached no 
ballot boxes and my individual ballot in any case 
would not have been legal as I was at the time 
but twenty years of age. I can but feel, however, 
that this vote of the prisoners was t37pical and 
important, and I have no doubt it was so recog- 
nised when later the report of the voting reached 
Washington. 

In December, 1864, occurred one of the too- 
frequent cabals on the part of certain members 
of the Cabinet. Pressure was brought to bear 
upon Lincoln to get rid of Seward. Lincoln's 
reply made clear that he proposed to remain 
President. He says to the member reporting 
for himself and his associates the protest against 
Seward: "I propose to be the sole judge as to 
the dismissal or appointment of the members 
of mv Cabinet." Lincoln could more than once 



The Final Campaign i6i 

have secured peace within the Cabinet and a 
smoother working of the administrative machinery 
if he had been willing to replace the typical and 
idiosyncratic men whom he had associated with 
himself in the government by more commonplace 
citizens, who would have been competent to 
carry on the routine responsibilities of their posts. 
The difficulty of securing any consensus of opinion 
or any working action between men differing 
from each other as widely as did Chase, Stanton, 
Blair, and Seward, in temperament, in judgment, 
and in honest convictions as to the proper policy 
for the nation, was an attempt that brought upon 
the chief daily burdens and many keen anxieties. 
Lincoln insisted, however, that it was all-important 
for the proper carrying on of the contest that 
the Cabinet should contain representatives of the 
several loyal sections of the country and of the 
various phases of opinion. The extreme anti- 
slavery men were entitled to be heard even though 
their spokesman Chase was often intemperate, 
ill-judged, bitter, and unfair. The Border States 
men had a right to be represented and it was all- 
essential that they should feel that they had a 
part in the War government even though their 
spokesman Blair might show himself, as he often 
did show himself, quite incapable of understanding, 



1 62 Abraham Lincoln 

much less of sympathising with, the real spirit 
of the North. Stanton might be truculent and 
even brutal , but he was willing to work, he knew 
how to organise, he was devotedly loyal. Seward, 
scholar and statesman as he was, had been ready 
to give needless provocation to Europe and was 
often equally ill-judged in his treatment of the 
conservative Border States on the one hand and 
of the New England abolitionists on the other, 
but Seward was a patriot as well as a scholar 
and was a representative not only of New York 
but of the best of the Whig Republican sentiment 
of the entire North, and Seward could not be 
spared. It is difficult to recall in history a 
government made up of such discordant elements 
which through the patience, tact, and genius 
of one man was made to do effective work. 

In February, 1865, in response to suggestions 
from the South which indicated the possibility 
of peace, Lincoln accepted a meeting with Alex- 
ander H. Stephens and two other commissioners 
to talk over measures for bringing the War to a 
close. The meeting was held on a gun-boat on 
the James River. It seems probable from the 
later history that Stephens had convinced himself 
that the Confederacy could not conquer its in- 
dependence and that it only remained to secure 



The Final Campaign 163 

the best terms possible for a surrender. On the 
other hand, Jefferson Davis was not yet prepared 
to consider any terms short of a recognition of 
the independence of the Confederacy, and Stephens 
could act only under the instructions received 
from Richmond. It was Lincoln's contention 
that the government of the United States could 
not treat with rebels (or, dropping the word 
"rebels," with its own citizens) in arms. "The 
first step in negotiations, must," said Lincoln, 
' ' be the laying down of arms. There is no prece- 
dent in history for a government entering into 
negotiations with its own armed citizens, " 

"But there is a precedent, Mr. Lincoln," said 
Stephens, " King Charles of England treated 
with the Cromwellians. " 

"Yes," said Lincoln, "I believe that is so. 
I usually leave historical details to Mr. Seward, 
who is a student. It is, however, my memory 
that King Charles lost his head. " 

It soon became evident that there was no real 
basis for negotiations, and Stephens and his asso- 
ciates had to return to Richmond disappointed. 
In the same month, was adopted by both Houses 
of Congress the Thirteenth Amendment, which 
prohibited slavery throughout the whole dominion 
of the United States. By the close of 1865, this 



1 64 Abraham Lincoln 

amendment had been confirmed by thirty-three 
States. It is probable that among these thirty- 
three there were several States the names of 
which were hardly familiar to some of the older 
citizens of the South, the men who had accepted 
the responsibility for the rebellion. The state 
of mind of these older Southerners in regard 
more particularly to the resources of the North- 
west was recalled to me years after the War by 
an incident related by General Sherman at a 
dinner of the New England Society. Sherman 
said that during the march through Georgia 
he had found himself one day at noon, when 
near the head of his column, passing below the 
piazza of a comfortable-looking old plantation 
house. He stopped to rest on the piazza with 
one or two of his staff and was received by the 
old planter with all the courtliness that a Southern 
gentleman could show, even to an invader, when 
doing the honours of his own house. The General 
and the planter sat on the piazza, looking at 
the troops below and discussing, as it was inevi- 
table under the circumstances that they must 
discuss, the causes of the War. 

"General," said the planter, "what troops are 
those passing below?" The General leans over 
the piazza and calls to the standard bearers, 



The Final Campaign 165 

"Throw out your flag, boys," and as the flag 
was thrown out, he reports to his host, "The 30th 
Wisconsin. " 

"Wisconsin?" said the planter, "Wisconsin? 
Where is Wisconsin? " 

"It is one of the States of the North-west," 
said Sherman. 

"When I was studying geography," said the 
planter, "I knew of Wisconsin simply as the 
name of a tribe of Indians. How many men are 
there in a regiment ? " 

"Well, there were a thousand when they 
started," said Sherman. 

"Do you mean to say, " said the planter, "that 
there is a State called Wisconsin that has sent 
thirty thousand men into your armies?" 

"Oh, probably forty thousand," answered Sher- 
man. 

With the next battalion the questions and 
the answers are repeated. The flag was that 
of a Minnesota regiment, say the 3 2d. The old 
planter had never heard that there was such a 
State. 

"My God!" he said when he had figured 
out the thousands of men who had come to the 
front, from these so-called Indian territories, to 
maintain the existence of the nation, "If we in 



1 66 Abraham Lincofn 

the South had known that you had turned those 
Indian territories into great States, we never 
should have gone into this war." The incident 
throws a light upon the state of mind of men in 
the South, even of well educated men in the South, 
at the outbreak of the War. They might, of 
course, have known by statistics that great States 
had grown up in the North-west, representing a 
population of millions and able themselves to put 
into the field armies to be counted by the thou- 
sand. They might have realised that these 
great States of the North-west were vitally con- 
cerned with the necessity of keeping the Mississippi 
open for their trade from its source to the Gulf 
of Mexico. They might have known that those 
States, largely settled from New England, were 
absolutely opposed to slavery. This know- 
ledge was within their reach but they had not 
realised the facts of the case. It was their feeling 
that in the coming contest they would have to 
do only with New England and the Middle States 
and they felt that they were strong enough to 
hold their own against this group of opponents. 
That feeling would have been justified. The 
South could never have been overcome and the 
existence of the nation could never have been 
maintained if it had not been for the loyal co- 



The Final Campaign 167 

operation and the magnificent resources of men 
and of national wealth that were contributed to 
the cause by the States of the North-west. In 
1880, I had occasion, in talking to the two thou- 
sand students of the University of Minnesota, 
to recall the utterance of the old planter. The 
students of that magnificent University, placed 
in a beautiful city of two hundred and fifty 
thousand inhabitants, found it difficult on their 
part to realise, amidst their laughter at the igno- 
rance of the old planter, just what the relations 
of the South had been before the War to the new 
free communities of the North-west. 

In February, 1865, with the fall of Fort Fisher 
and the capture of Wilmington, the control of 
the coast of the Confederacy became complete. 
The Southerners and their friends in Great 
Britain and the Bahamas (a group of friends 
whose sympathies for the cause were very much 
enhanced by the opportunity of making large 
profits out of their friendly relations) had shown 
during the years of the War exceptional ingenuity, 
daring, and persistence in carrying on the blockade- 
running. The ports of the British West Indies 
were very handy, and, particularly during the 
stormy months of the winter, it was hardly 
practicable to maintain an absolutely assured 



1 68 Abraham Lincoln 

barrier of blockades along a line of coast aggre- 
gating about two thousand miles. The profits 
on a single voyage on the cotton taken out and on 
the stores brought back were sufficient to make 
good the loss of both vessel and cargo in three 
disastrous trips. The blockade-runners, South- 
erners and Englishmen, took their lives in their 
hands and they fairly earned all the returns that 
came to them. I happened to have early expe- 
rience of the result of the fall of Fort Fisher and 
of the final closing of the last inlet for British 
goods. I was at the time in prison in Danville, 
Virginia. I was one of the few men in the prison 
(the group comprised about a dozen) who had 
been fortunate enough to retain a tooth-brush. 
We wore our tooth-brushes fastened into the front 
button-holes of our blouses, partly possibly from 
ostentation, but chiefly for the purpose of keeping 
them from being stolen. I was struck by receiv- 
ing an offer one morning from the lieutenant of 
the prison guard of $300 for my tooth-brush. 
The "dollars" meant of course Confederate 
dollars and I doubtless hardly realised from the 
scanty information that leaked into the prison 
how low down in February, 1865, Confederate 
currency had depreciated. But still it was a 
large sum and the tooth-brush had been in use 



The Final Campaign 169 

for a number of months. It then leaked out 
from a word dropped by the lieutenant that no 
more English tooth-brushes could get into the 
Confederacy and those of us who had been study- 
ing possibilities on the coast realised that Fort 
Fisher must have fallen. 

In this same month of February, into which were 
crowded some of the most noteworthy of the 
closing events of the War, Charleston was evacu- 
ated as Sherman's army on its sweep northward 
passed back of the city. I am not sure whether 
the fiercer of the old Charlestonians were not 
more annoyed at the lack of attention paid by 
Sherman to the fire-eating little city in which 
four years back had been fired the gun that 
opened the War, than they would have been 
by an immediate and strenuous occupation. 
Sherman had more important matters on hand 
than the business of looking after the original 
fire-eaters. He was hurrying northward, close 
on the heels of Johnston, to prevent if possible 
the combination of Johnston's troops with Lee's 
army which was supposed to be retreating from 
Virginia. 

On the 4th of March comes the second inaugural, 
in which Lincoln speaks almost in the language 
of a Hebrew prophet. The feeling is strong upon 



I70 Abraham Lincoln 

him that the clouds of war are about to roll away 
but he cannot free himself from the oppression 
that the burdens of the War have produced. The 
emphasis is placed on the all-important task 
of bringing the enmities to a close with the end 
of the actual fighting. He points out that respon- 
sibilities rest upon the North as well as upon the 
South and he invokes from those who under his 
leadership are bringing the contest to a triumphant 
close, their sympathy and their help for their 
fellow-men who have been overcome. The ad- 
dress is possibly the most impressive utterance 
ever made by a national leader and it is most 
characteristic of the fineness and largeness of 
nature of the man. I cite the closing paragraph : 

"If we shall suppose that slavery is one of those 
offences which in the providence of God needs must 
come, and which having continued through His 
appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that 
He gives to both North and South this terrible war 
as the woe to those by whom the offence came, shall 
we discern therein any departure from those Divine 
attributes, which the believers in the Living God 
always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fer- 
vently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war 
may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it 
should continue until all the wealth piled by the 
bondsmen in two hundred and fifty years of unre- 
quited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of 



The Final Campaign 171 

blood drawn with the lash shall be paid for by an- 
other drop of blood drawn by the War, as was said 
two thousand years ago so still it must be said, that 
the judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous 
altogether. . . . With malice towards none, with 
charity for all, with firmness in the right as God 
gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the 
work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to 
care for him who shall have borne the battle and 
for his widow and for his orphans, to do all which 
may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace 
among ourselves and with all nations. " 

After the election of 1864, Lincoln's word had 
been "a common cause, a common interest, and 
a common country." The invocation in this 
last inaugural is based upon the understanding 
that there is again a common country and that 
in caring for those who have been in the battle 
and in the binding up of the wounds, there is to 
be no distinction between the men of the grey 
and those of the blue. 

At the close of February, Lee, who realises that 
his weakened lines cannot much longer be main- 
tained, proposes to Grant terms of adjustment. 
Grant replies that his duties are purely military 
and that he has no authority to discuss any 
political relations. On the first of April, the 
right wing of Lee's army is overwhelmed and 
driven back by Sheridan at Five Forks, and on 



172 Abraham Lincoln 

the day following Richmond is evacuated by the 
rear -guard of Lee's army. The defence of Rich- 
mond during the long years of the War (a 
defence which was carried on chiefly from the 
entrenchments of Petersburg) , by the skill of the 
engineers and by the patient courage of the troops, 
had been magnificent. It must always take a 
high rank in the history of war operations. The 
skilful use made of positions of natural strength, 
the high skill shown in the construction of works 
to meet first one emergency and then another, 
the economic distribution of constantly diminish- 
ing resources, the clever disposition of forces, 
(which during the last year were being steadily 
reduced from month to month), in such fashion 
that at the point of probable contact there seemed 
to be always men enough to make good the de- 
fence, these things were evidence of the military 
skill, the ingenuity, the resourcefulness, and the 
enduring courage of the leaders. The skill and 
character of Lee and his associates would however 
of course have been in vain and the lines would 
have been broken not in 1865, but in 1863 or in 
1862 , if it had not been for the magnificent patience 
and heroism of the rank and file that fought in 
the grey uniform under the Stars and Bars and 
whose fighting during the last of those months 



The Final Campaign i73 

was done in tattered uniforms and with a ration 
less by from one quarter to one half than that 
which had been accepted as normal. 

On the second of April, the Stars and Stripes 
are borne into Richmond by the advance brigade 
of the right wing of Grant's army under the 
command of General Weitzel. There was a cer- 
tain poetic justice in the decision that the respon- 
sibility for making first occupation of the city 
should be entrusted to the coloured troops. The 
city had been left by the rear-guard of the Con- 
federate army in a state of serious confusion. 
The Confederate general in charge (Lee had 
gone out in the advance hoping to be able to break 
his way through to North Carolina) had felt 
justified, for the purpose of destroying such army 
stores (chiefly ammunition) as remained, in 
setting fire to the storehouses, and in so doing 
he had left whole quarters of the city exposed 
to flame. White stragglers and negroes who had 
been slaves had, as would always be the case 
where all authority is removed, yielded to the 
temptation to plunder, and the city was full of 
drunken and irresponsible men. The coloured 
troops restored order and appear to have 
behaved with perfect discipline and consideration. 
The marauders were arrested, imprisoned, and, 



174 Abraham Lincoln 

when necessary, shot. The fires were put out 
as promptly as practicable, but not until a large 
amount of very unnecessary damage and loss 
had been brought upon the stricken city. The 
women who had locked themselves into their 
houses, more in dread of the Yankee invader than 
of their own street marauders, were agreeably 
surprised to find that their immediate safety 
and the peace of the town depended upon the 
invaders and that the first battalions of these 
were the despised and much hated blacks. 

Upon the 4th of April, against the counsel and 
in spite of the apprehensions of nearly all his 
advisers, Lincoln insisted upon coming down 
the river from Washington and making his way 
into the Rebel capital. There was no thought 
of vaingloriousness or of posing as the victor. 
He came imder the impression that some civil 
authorities would probably have remained in 
Richmond with whom immediate measures might 
be taken to stop unnecessary fighting and to 
secure for the city and for the State a return of 
peaceful government. Thomas Nast, who while 
not a great artist was inspired to produce during 
the War some of the most graphic and story- 
telling records in the shape of pictures of events, 
made a drawing which was purchased later by 



The Final Campaign 175 

the New York Union League Club, showing 
Lincoln on his way through Main Street, with the 
coloured folks of the town and of the surrounding 
country crowding about the man whom they 
hailed as their deliverer, and in their enthusiastic 
adoration trying to touch so much as the hem 
of his garment. The picture is history in showing 
what actually happened and it is pathetic history 
in recalling how great were the hopes that came 
to the coloured people from the success of the 
North and from the certainty of the end of slavery. 
It is sad to recall the many disappointments 
that during the forty years since the occupation 
of Richmond have hampered the uplifting of 
the race, Lincoln's hope that some representa- 
tive of the Confederacy might have remained in 
Richmond, if only for the purpose of helping to 
bring to a close as rapidly as possible the waste 
and burdens of continued war, was not realised. 
The members of the Confederate government 
seem to have been interested only in getting away 
from Richmond and to have given no thought to 
the duty they owed to their own people to co- 
operate with the victors in securing a prompt 
return of law and order. 

On the 9th of April, came the surrender of 
Lee at Appomattox, four years, less three days, 



i?^ Abraham Lincoln 

from the date of the firing of the first gun of the 
War at Charleston. The muskets turned in by 
the ragged and starving files of the remnants of 
Lee's army represented only a small portion of 
those which a few days earlier had been holding 
the entrenchments at Petersburg. As soon as it 
became evident that the army was not going to 
be able to break through the Federal lines and 
begin a fresh campaign in North Carolina, the 
men scattered from the retreating columns right 
and left, in many cases carrying their muskets 
to their own homes as a memorial fairly earned 
by plucky and persistent service. There never 
was an army that did better fighting or that was 
better deserving of the recognition, not only of 
the States in behalf of whose so-called "indepen- 
dence" the War had been waged, but on the part 
of opponents who were able to realise the charac- 
ter and the effectiveness of the fighting. 

The scene in the little farm-house where the 
two commanders met to arrange the terms of 
surrender was dramatic in more ways than one. 
General Lee had promptly given up his own 
baggage waggon for use in carrying food for the 
advance brigade and as he could save but one 
suit of clothes, he had naturally taken his best. 
He was, therefore, notwithstanding the fatigues 



The Final Campaign 177 

and the privations of the past week, in full dress 
uniform. He was one of the handsomest men 
of his generation, and his beauty was not only 
of feature but of expression of character. Grant, 
who never gave much thought to his personal 
appearance, had for days been away from his 
baggage train, and under the urgency of keeping 
as near as possible to the front line with reference 
to the probability of being called to arrange 
terms for surrender, he had not found the oppor- 
tunity of securing a proper coat in place of his 
fatigue blouse. I believe that even his sword 
had been mislaid, but he was able to borrow one 
for the occasion from a staff officer. When the 
main details of the surrender had been talked 
over, Grant looked about the group in the room, 
which included, in addition to two staff officers 
who had come with Lee, a group of five or six of 
his own assistants, who had managed to keep up 
with the advance, to select the aid who should 
write out the paper. His eye fell upon General 
^ John Morgan, a brigade commander who had dur- 
ing the past few months served on Grant's staff. 
"General Morgan, I will ask you, "said Grant, 
"as the only real American in the room, to draft 
this paper." Morgan was a full-blooded Indian, be- 
longing to one of the Iroquois tribes of New York. 



^ 






4h nU. *^^i<A^ 



178 Abraham Lincoln 

Grant's suggestion that the United States had 
no requirement for the horses of Lee's army and 
that the men might find these convenient for 
"spring ploughing" was received by Lee with 
full appreciation. The first matter in order after 
the completion of the surrender was the issue of 
rations to the starving Southern troops. "Gen- 
eral Grant," said Lee, "a train was ordered by 
way of Danville to bring rations to meet my army 
and it ought to be now at such a point, " naming 
a village eight or nine miles to the south-west. 
General Sheridan, with a twinkle in his eye, now 
put in a word : "The train from the south is there, 
General Lee, or at least it was there yesterday. My 
men captured it and the rations will be available. " 
General Lee turns, mounts his old horse Traveller, 
a valued comrade, and rides slowly through the 
ranks first of the blue and then of the grey. Every 
hat came off from the men in blue as an expression 
of respect to a great soldier and a true gentleman, 
while from the ranks in grey there was one great 
sob of passionate grief and finally, almost for the 
first time in Lee's army, a breaking of discipline as 
the men crowded forward to get a closer look at, 
or possibly a grasp of the hand of, the great leader 
who had fought and failed but whose fighting and 
whose failure had been so magnificent. 



IX 



LINCOLN S TASK ENDED 



On the nth of April, Lincoln makes his last 
public utterance. In a brief address to some 
gathering in Washington, he says, "There will 
shortly be announcement of a new policy." It 
is hardly to be doubted that the announcement 
which he had in mind was to be concerned with 
the problem of reconstruction. He had already 
outlined in his mind the essential principles on 
which the readjustment must be made. In 
this same address, he points out that "whether 
or not the seceded States be out of the Union, 
they are out of their proper relations to the Union." 
We may feel sure that he would not have per- 
mitted the essential matters of readjustment 
to be delayed while political lawyers were arguing 
over the constitutional issue. On one side was 
the group which maintained that in instituting 
the Rebellion and in doing what was in their 
power to destroy the national existence, the people 

of the seceding States had forfeited all claims 

179 



i8o Abraham Lincoln 

to the political liberty of their communities. 
According to this contention, the Slave States 
were to be treated as conquered territory, and 
it simply remained for the government of the 
United States to reshape this territory as might 
be found convenient or expedient. According 
to the other view, as secession was itself something 
which was not to be admitted, being, from the 
constitutional point of view, impossible, there 
never had in the legal sense of the term been any 
secession. The instant the armed rebellion had 
been brought to an end, the rebelling States 
were to be considered as having resumed their 
old-time relations with the States of the North 
and with the central government. They were 
under the same obligations as before for taxation, 
for subordination in foreign relations, and for 
the acceptance of the control of the Federal 
government on all matters classed as Federal. 
On the other hand, they were entitled to the 
privileges that had from the beginning been 
exercised by independent States: namely, the 
control of their local affairs on matters not classed 
as Federal, and they had a right to their propor- 
tionate representation in Congress and to their 
proportion of the electoral vote for President. 
It has been very generally recognised in the South 



Lincoln's Task Ended 



i»i 



as in the North that if Lincoln could have lived 

» 

some of the most serious of the difficulties that 
arose during the reconstruction period through the 
friction between these conflicting theories would 
have been avoided. The Southerners would 
have realised that the head of the government 
had a cordial and sympathetic interest in doing 
what might be practicable not only to re-establish 
their relations as citizens of the United States, 
but to further in every way the return of their 
communities to prosperity, a prosperity which, 
after the loss of the property in their slaves 
and the enormous destruction of their general 
resources, seemed to be sadly distant. 

On the 14th of April, comes the dramatic 
tragedy ending on the day following in the death 
of Lincoln. The word dramatic applies in this 
instance with peculiar fitness. While the nation 
mourned for the loss of its leader, while the soldiers 
were stricken with grief that their great captain 
should have been struck down, while the South 
might well be troubled that the control and adjust- 
ment of the great interstate perplexities was not 
to be in the hands of the wise, sympathetic, and 
patient ruler, for the worker himself the rest after 
the four years of continuous toil and fearful bur- 
dens and anxieties might well have been grateful. 



1 82 Abraham Lincoln 

The great task had been accompHshed and the 
responsibilities accepted in the first inaugural 
had been fulfilled. 

In March, 1861, Lincoln had accepted the task 
of steering the nation through the storm of rebel- 
lion, the divided opinions and counsels of friends, 
and the fierce onslaught of foes at home and 
abroad. In April, 1865, the national existence 
was assured, the nation's credit was established, 
the troops were prepared to return to their homes 
and resume their work as citizens. At no time 
in history had any people been able against such 
apparently overwhelming perils and difficulties to 
maintain a national existence. There was, there- 
fore, notwithstanding the great misfortune, for 
the people South and North, in the loss of the 
wise ruler at a time when so many difficulties 
remained to be adjusted, a dramatic fitness in 
having the life of the leader close just as the 
last army of antagonists was laying down its 
arms. The first problem of the War that came 
to the administration of 1861 was that of restor- 
ing the flag over Fort Sumter, On the 14th of 
April, the day when Booth's pistol was laying low 
the President, General Anderson, who four years 
earlier had so sturdily defended Sumter, was ful- 
filling the duty of restoring the Stars and Stripes.' 



Lincoln's Task Ended 183 

The news of the death of Lincoln came to the 
army of Sherman, with which my own regiment 
happened at the time to be associated, on the 
17th of April. On leaving Savannah, Sherman 
had sent word to the north to have all the troops 
who were holding posts along the coasts of North 
Carolina concentrated on a line north of Golds- 
borough. It was his dread that General Johnston 
might be able to effect a junction with the re- 
treating forces of Lee and it was important to 
do whatever was practicable, either with forces or 
with a show of forces, to delay Johnston and to 
make such combination impossible. A thin line 
of Federal troops was brought into position to 
the north of Johnston's advance, but Sherman 
himself kept so closely on the heels of his plucky 
and persistent antagonist that, irrespective of any 
opposing line to the north, Johnston would have 
found it impossible to continue his progress to- 
wards Virginia. He was checked at Golds- 
borough after the battle of Bentonville and it 
was at Goldsborough that the last important 
force of the Confederacy was surrendered. 

We soldiers learned only later some of the 
complications that preceded that surrender. 
President Davis and his associates in the Con- 
federate government had, with one exception, 



1 84 Abraham Lincoln 

maxie their way south, passing to the west of 
Sherman's advance. The exception was Post- 
master-General Reagan, who had decided to 
remain with General Johnston. He appears to 
have made good with Johnston the claim that he, 
Reagan, represented all that was left of the Con- 
federate government. He persuaded Johnston to 
permit him to undertake the negotiations with 
Sherman, and he had, it seems, the ambition of 
completing with his own authority the arrange- 
ments that were to terminate the War. Sherman, 
simple-hearted man that he was, permitted him- 
self, for the time, to be confused by Reagan's 
semblance of authority. He executed with 
Reagan a convention which covered not merely 
the surrender of Johnston's army but the pre- 
liminaries of a final peace. This convention was 
of course made subject to the approval of the 
authorities in Washington. When it came into 
the hands of President Johnson, it was, under the 
coimsel of Seward and Stanton, promptly disa- 
vowed. Johnson instructed Grant, who had 
reported to Washington from Appomattox, to 
make his way at once to Goldsborough and, re- 
lieving Sherman, to arrange for the surrender of 
Johnston's army on the terms of Appomattox. 
Grant's response was characteristic. He said in 



Lincoln's Task Ended 185 

substance: "I am here, Mr. President, to obey 
orders and iinder the decision of the Commander- 
in-chief I will go to Goldsborough and will carry- 
out your instructions. I prefer, however, to act 
as a messenger simply. I am entirely imwilling 
to take out of General Sherman's hands the com- 
mand of the army that is so properly Sherman's 
army and that he has led with such distinctive suc- 
cess. General Sherman has rendered too great a 
service to the country to make it proper to have 
him now hiimiliated on the ground of a political 
bltmder, and I at least am unwilling to be in any 
way a party to his humiliation." 

Stanton was disposed to approve of Johnson's 
first instruction and to have Sherman at once 
relieved, but the man who had just come from 
Appomattox was too strong with the people to 
make it easy to disregard his judgment on a matter 
which was in part at least military. The Presi- 
dent was still new to his office and he was still 
prepared to accept coimsel. The matter was, 
therefore, arranged as Grant desired. Grant 
took the instructions and had his personal word 
with Sherman, but this word was so quietly given 
that none of the men in Sherman's army, possibly 
no one but Sherman himself, knew of Grant's visit. 
Grant took pains so to arrange the last stage of 



1 86 Abraham Lincoln 

his journey that he came into the camp at Golds- 
borough well after dark, and, after an hour's 
interview with Sherman, he made his way at 
once northward outside of our lines and of our 
knowledge. 

On Grant's arrival, Sherman at once assumed 
that he was to be superseded. "No, no," said 
Grant; " do you not see that I have come without 
even a sword ? There is here no question of super- 
seding the commander of this army, but simply of 
correcting an error and of putting things as they 
were. This convention must be cancelled. You 
will have no further negotiation with Mr. Reagan 
or with any civilian claiming to represent the 
Confederacy. Your transactions will be made 
with the commander of the Confederate army, and 
you will accept the surrender of that army on 
the terms that were formulated at Appomattox." 
Sherman was keen enough to understand what 
must have passed in Washington, and was able 
to appreciate the loyal consideration shown by 
General Grant in the successful effort to protect 
the honour and the prestige of his old comrade. 
The surrender was carried out on the 26th of 
April, eleven days after the death of Lincoln. 
Johnston's troops, like those of Lee, were dis- 
tributed to their homes. The officers retained 



Lincoln's Task Ended 187 

their side-arms, and the men, leaving their rifles, 
took with them not only such horses and mules 
as they still had with them connected with 
the cavalry or artillery, but also a number of 
horses and mules which had been captured by 
Sherman's army and which had not yet been 
placed on the United States army roster. Sher- 
man tmderstood, as did Grant, the importance of 
giving to these poor farmers whatever facilities 
might be available to enable them again to begin 
their home work. Word was at once sent to 
General Johnston after Grant's departure that 
the only terms that could be considered was a 
sirrrender of the army, and that the details of such 
surrender Sherman would himself arrange with 
Johnston. Reagan slipped away southward and 
is not further heard of in history. 

The record of Lincoln's relations to the events 
of the War would not be complete without a 
reference to the capture of Jefferson Davis. On 
returning to Washington after his visit to Rich- 
mond, Lincoln had been asked what should be 
done with Davis when he was captured. The 
answer was characteristic: "I do not see," said 
Lincoln, " that we have any use for a white ele- 
phant." Lincoln's clear judgment had at once 
recognised the difficulties that would arise in 



1 88 Abraham Lincoln 

case Davis should become a prisoner. The ques- 
tion as to the treatment of the ruler of the late 
Confederacy was very different from, and much 
more compHcated than, the fixing of terms of 
surrender for the Confederate armies. If Davis 
had succeeded in getting out of the country, 
it is probable that the South, or at least a large 
portion of the South, would have used him as a 
kind of a scapegoat. Many of the Confederate 
soldiers were indignant with Davis for his bitter 
animosities to some of their best leaders. Davis 
was a capable man and had in him the elements of 
statesmanship. He was, however, vain and, like 
some other vain men, placed the most importance 
upon the capacities in which he was the least 
effective. He had had a brief and creditable 
military experience, serving as a lieutenant with 
Scott's army in Mexico, and he had impressed 
himself with the belief that he was a great com- 
mander. Partly on this ground, and partly 
apparently as a result of general ' ' incompatibility 
of temper," Davis managed to quarrel at different 
times during the War with some of the generals 
who had shown themselves the most capable and 
the most serviceable. He would probably have 
quarrelled with Lee, if it had been possible for any 
one to make quarrel relations with that fine- 



Lincoln's Task Ended 189 

natured gentleman, and if Lee had not been too 
strongly entrenched in the hearts of his country- 
men to make any interference with him unwise, 
even for the President. Davis had, however, 
managed to interfere very seriously with the 
operations of men like Beauregard, Sidney John- 
^son, Joseph Johnston, and other commanders 
whose continued leadership was most important 
for the Confederacy. It was the obstinacy of 
Davis that had protracted the War through the 
winter and spring of 1865, long after it was evi- 
dent from the reports of Lee and of the other 
commanders that the resources of the Confederacy 
were exhausted and that any further struggle 
simply meant an inexcusable loss of life on both 
sides. As a Northern soldier who has had experi- 
ence in Southern prisons, I may be excused also 
from bearing in mind the fearful responsibility that 
rests upon Davis for the mismanagement of those 
prisons, a mismanagement which caused the death 
of thousands of brave men on the frozen slopes 
of Belle Isle, on the foul floors of Libby and 
Danville, and on the rotten ground used for three 
years as a living place and as a dying place within 
the stockade at Andersonville. Davis received 
from month to month the reports of the condi- 
tions in these and in the other prisons of the Con- 



190 Abraham Lincoln 

federacy. Davis could not have been tinaware 
of the stupidity and the brutality of keeping 
prisoners in Richmond during the last winter of the 
War when the lines of road still open were abso- 
lutely inadequate to supply the troops in the 
trenches or the people of the town. Reports 
were brought to Davis more than once from Ander- 
sonville showing that a large portion of the deaths 
that were there occiurring were due to the vile 
and rotten condition of the hollow in which for 
years prisoners had been huddled together; but 
the appeal made to Richmond for permission to 
move the stockade to a clean and dry slope was 
put to one side as a matter of no importance. 
The entire authority in the matter was in the 
hands of Davis and a word from him would have 
remedied some of the worst conditions. He must 
share with General Winder, the immediate super- 
intendent of the prisons, the responsibility for the 
heedless and brutal mismanagement, — a misman- 
agement which brought death to thousands and 
which left thousands of others cripples for life. 

As a result of the informal word given by Lin- 
coln, it was generally understood, by all the 
oflficers, at least, in charge of posts and picket 
lines along the eastern slope, that Davis was not 
to be captured. Unfortunately it had not proved 



Lincoln's Task Ended 191 

possible to get this informal expression of a very 
important piece of policy conveyed throughout 
the lines farther west. An enterprising and over- 
zealous captain of cavalry, riding across from the 
Mississippi to the coast, heard of Davis's party in 
Florida and, " butting in," captured, on May loth, 
' ' the white elephant. ' ' 

The last commands of the Confederate army 
were surrendered with General Taylor in Louisiana 
on the 4th of May and with Kirby Smith in Texas 
on the 26th of May. As Lincoln had fore- 
shadowed, not a few complications restdted from 
this imfortunate capture of Davis, complications 
that were needlessly added to by the lack of 
clear-headedness or of definite policy on the part 
of a confused and vacillating President. During 
the months in which Davis was a prisoner at 
Fortress Monroe, and while the question of his 
trial for treason was being fiercely debated in 
Washington, the sentiment of the Confederacy 
naturally concentrated upon its late President. 
He was, as the single prisoner, the surviving em- 
blem of the contest. His vanities, irritability, 
and blunders were forgotten. It was natural 
that, imder the circumstances, his people, the 
people of the South, should hold in memory only 
the fact that he had been their leader and that 



192 Abraham Lincoln 

he had through four strenuous years borne the 
burdens of leadership with tmflagging zeal, with 
persistent courage, and with an almost foolhardy 
hopefulness. He had given to the Confederacy 
the best of his life, and he was entitled to the 
adoration that the survivors of the Confederacy 
gave to him as representing the ideal of the lost 
cause. 

The feeling with which Lincoln was regarded 
by the men in the front, for whom through the 
early years of their campaigning he had been not 
only the leader but the inspiration, was indicated 
by the manner in which the news of his death was 
received. I happened myself on the day of those 
sad tidings to be with my division in a little 
village just outside of Goldsborough, North 
CaroUna. We had no telegraphic communication 
with the North, but were accustomed to receive 
despatches about noon each day, carried across 
the swamps from a station through which con- 
nection was made with Wilmington and the North. 
In the course of the morning, I had gone to the 
shanty of an old darky whom I had come to know 
during the days of our sojoiu^n, for the purpose of 
getting a shave. The old fellow took up his 
razor, put it down again and then again lifted it 
up, but his arm was shaking and I saw that he was 



Lincoln's Task Ended 193 

so agitated that he was not fitted for the task. 
"Massa," he said, "I can't shave yer this mornin'." 
"What is the matter?" I inquired. "Well," 
he replied, "somethin's happened to Massa 
Linkum. " "Why!" said I, "nothing has hap- 
pened to Lincoln. I know what there is to be 
known. What are you talking about ? " " Well ! ' ' 
the old man replied with a half sob, "we coloured 
folks — ^we get news or we get half news sooner 
than you-ims. I dun know jes' what it is, but 
somethin' has gone wrong with Massa Linkum." 
I could get nothing more out of the old man, 
but I was sufficiently anxious to make my way to 
Division headquarters to see if there was any 
news in advance of the arrival of the regular 
courier. The coloured folks were standing in little 
groups along the village street, murmuring to 
each other or waiting with anxious faces for the 
bad news that they were sure was coming. I 
found the brigade adjutant and those with him 
were puzzled like myself at the troubled minds of 
the darkies, but still sceptical as to the possibility 
of any information having reached them which 
was not known through the regular channels. 

At noon, the courier made his appearance 
riding by the wood lane across the fields ; and the 
instant he was seen we all realised that there was 



194 Abraham Lincoln 

bad news. The man was hurrying his pony and 
yet seemed to be very imwilling to reach the lines 
where his report must be made. In this instance 
(as was, of course, not usually the case) the courier 
knew what was in his despatches. The Division 
Adjutant stepped out on the porch of the head- 
quarters with the paper in his hand, but he broke 
down before he could begin to read. The Di- 
vision Commander took the word and was able 
simply to announce: "Lincoln is dead." The 
word "President" was not necessary and he 
sought in fact for the shortest word. I never be- 
fore had found myself in a mass of men overcome 
by emotion. Ten thousand soldiers were sobbing 
together. No survivor of the group can recall the 
sadness of that morning without again being 
touched by the wave of emotion which broke 
down the reserve and control of these war-worn 
veterans on learning that their great captain 
was dead. 

The whole people had come to have with the 
President a relation similar to that which had 
grown up between the soldiers and their Com- 
mander-in-chief. With the sympathy and love of 
the people to sustain him, Lincoln had over them 
an almost unlimited influence. His capacity for 
toil, his sublime patience, his wonderfiU endur- 



Lincoln's Task Ended 195 

ance, his great mind and heart, his out-reaching 
sympathies, his thoughtfulness for the needs and 
requirements of all, had bound him to his fellow- 
citizens by an attachment of genuine sentiment. 
His appellation throughout the cotintry had dur- 
ing the last year of the war become "Father Abra- 
ham. " We may recall in the thought of this 
relation to the people the record of Washington. 
The first President has come into history as the 
"Father of his Country," but for Washington this 
role of father is something of historic develop- 
ment. During Washington's lifetime, or certainly 
at least during the years of his responsibilities 
as General and as President, there was no such 
general recognition of the leader and niler as 
the father of his coimtry. He was dear to a 
small circle of intimates ; he was held in respectful 
regard by a larger number of those with whom 
were carried on his responsibilities in the army, 
and later in the nation's government. To many 
good Americans, however, Washington represented 
for years an antagonistic principle of government. 
He was regarded as an aristocrat and there were 
not a few political leaders, with groups of voters 
behind them, who dreaded, and doubtless hon- 
estly dreaded, that the influence of Washington 
might be utilised to build up in this country 



196 Abraham Lincoln 

some fresh form of the monarchy that had been 
overthrown. The years of the Presidency had 
to be completed and the bitter antagonisms of the 
seven years' fighting and of the issues of the 
Constitution-building had to be outgrown, before 
the people were able to recognise as a whole the 
perfect integrity of purpose and consistency of 
action of their great leader, the first President. 
Even then when the animosities and suspicions 
had died away, while the people were ready to 
honour the high character and the accomplish- 
ments of Washington, the feeling was one of 
reverence rather than of affection. This sentiment 
gave rise later to the title of the "Father of his 
Coimtry ' ' ; but there was no such personal feeling 
towards Washington as warranted, at least 
during his life, the term father of the people. 
Thirty years later, the ruler of the nation is 
Andrew Jackson, a man who was, like Lincoln, 
eminently a representative of the common people. 
His fellow-citizens knew that Jackson under- 
stood their feelings and their methods and were 
ready to have full confidence in Jackson's pa- 
triotism and honesty of purpose. His nature 
lacked, however, the sweet sympathetic qualities 
that characterised Lincoln; and while to a large 
body of his fellow-citizens he commended himself 



Lincoln's Task Ended i97 

for sturdiness, courage, and devotion to the 
interests of the state, he was never able for him- 
self to overcome the feeling that a man who 
failed to agree with a Jackson policy must be 
either a knave or a fool. He could not place 
himself in the position from which the other fellow 
was thinking or acting. He believed that it was 
his duty to maintain what he held to be the popular 
cause against the "schemes of the aristocrats," 
the bugbear of that day. He was a fighter from 
his youth up and his theory of government was 
that of enforcing the control of the side for which 
he was the partisan. Such a man could never 
be accepted as the father of the people. 

Lincoln, coming from those whom he called the 
common people, feeling with their feelings, sym- 
pathetic with their needs and ideals, was able in 
the development of his powers to be accepted as 
the peer of the largest intellects in the land. While 
knowing what was needed by the poor whites of 
Kentucky, he could understand also the point 
of view of Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. 
In place of emphasising antagonisms, he held con- 
sistently that the highest interest of one section, 
of the country must be the real interest of the 
whole people, and that the ruler of the nation had 
upon him the responsibility of so shaping the 



19^ Abraham Lincoln 

national policy that all the people should recognise 
the government as their government. It was 
this large understanding and width of sympathy 
that made Lincoln in a sense which could be 
applied to no other ruler of this country, the 
people's President, and no other ruler in the 
world has ever been so sympathetically, so ef- 
fectively in touch with all of the fellow-citizens 
for whose welfare he made himself responsible. 
The Latin writer, Aulus Gellius, uses for one of his 
heroes the term ' ' a classic character. ' ' These 
words seem to me fairly to apply to Abraham 
Lincoln. 

An appreciative Englishman, writing in the 
London Nation at the time of the Centennial 
commemoration, says of Lincoln: 

The greatness of Lincoln was that of a common 
man raised to a high dimension. The possibility, 
still more the existence, of such a man is itselt a 
justification of democracy. We do not say that so 
independent, so natural, so complete a man cannot 
in older societies come to wield so large a power over 
the affairs and the minds of men; we can only say 
that amid all the stirring movements of the nine- 
teenth century he has not so done. The existence 
of what may be called a widespread commonalty 
explains the rarity of personal eminence in America. 



Lincoln's Task Ended 199 

There has been and still remains a higher general 
level of personality than in any European country, 
and the degree of eminence is correspondingly re- 
duced. It is just because America has stood for 
opportunity that conspicuous individuals have been 
comparatively rare. Strong personality, however, 
has not been rare; it is the abundance of such per- 
sonality that has built up silently into the rising 
fabric of the American Commonwealth, pioneers, 
roadmakers, traders, lawyers, soldiers, teachers, 
toiling terribly over the material and moral founda- 
tion of the country, few of whose names have emerged 
or survived. Lincoln was of this stock, was reared 
among these rude energetic folk, had lived all those 
sorts of lives. He was no "sport"; his career is a 
triumphant refutation of the traditional views 
of genius. He had no special gift or quality to dis- 
tinguish him ; he was simply the best type of American 
at a historic juncture when the national safety 
wanted such a man. The confidence which all Ameri- 
cans express that their country will be equal to any 
emergency which may threaten it, is not so entirely 
superstitious as it seems at first sight. For the 
career of Lincoln shows how it has been done in a 
country where the " necessary man" can be drawn not 
from a few leading families, or an educated class, but 
from the millions. 

Rabbi Schechter, in an eloquent address de- 



200 Abraham Lincoln 

Hvered at the Centennial celebration, speaks of 
Lincoln's personality as follows: 

The half century that has elapsed since Lincoln's 
death has dispelled the mists that encompassed him 
on earth. Men now not only recognise the right 
which he championed, but behold in him the standard 
of righteousness, of liberty, of conciliation, and truth. 
In him, as it were personified, stands the Union, all 
that is best and noblest and enduring in its principles 
in which he devoutly believed and served mightily to 
save. When to-day, the world celebrates the cen- 
tury of his existence, he has become the ideal of both 
North and South, of a common country, composed 
not only of the factions that once confronted each 
other in war's dreadful array, but of the myriad 
thousands that have since found in the American 
nation the hope of the future and the refuge from 
age-entrenched wrong and absolutism. To them, 
Lincoln, his life, his history, his character, his entire 
personality, with all its wondrous charm and grace, 
its sobriety, patience, self-abnegation, and sweet- 
ness, has come to be the very prototype of a rising 
humanity. 

Carl Schurz, himself a man of large natttre and 
wide and sympathetic comprehension, says of 
Lincoln : 

In the most conspicuous position of the period, 



Lincoln's Task Ended 201 

Lincoln drew upon himself the scoffs of polite society; 
but even then he filled the souls of mankind with 
utterances of wonderful beauty and grandeur. It 
was distinctly the weird mixture in him of qualities 
and forces, of the lofty with the common, the ideal 
with the uncouth, of that which he had become with 
that which he had not ceased to be, that made him so 
fascinating a character among his fellow-men, that 
gave him his singular power over minds and hearts, 
that fitted him to be the greatest leader in the greatest 
crisis of our national life. 

He possessed the courage to stand alone — that 
courage which is the first requisite of leadership in a 
great cause. The charm of Lincoln's oratory -flooded 
all the rare depth and genuineness of his convictions 
and his sympathetic feelings were the strongest 
element in his nature. He was one of the greatest 
Americans and the best of men. 

The poet Whittier writes : 

The weary form that rested not 
Save in a martyr's grave; 
The care-worn face that none forgot. 
Turned to the kneeling slave. 

We rest in peace where his sad eyes 

Saw peril, strife, and pain; 
His was the awful sacrifice. 
And ours the priceless gain. 



202 Abraham Lincoln 

Says Bryant: 

That task is done, the bound are free, 
We bear thee to an honoured grave, 
Whose noblest monument shall be 
The broken fetters of the slave. 

Pure was thy life; its bloody close 
Hath blessed thee with the sons of light, 
Among the noble host of those 
Who perished in the cause of right. 

Says Lowell : 

Our children shall behold his fame, 
The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame; 
New birth of our new soil, the first American. 

Ordinary men die when their physical life is 
brought to a close, if perhaps not at once, yet in a 
brief space, with the passing of the little circle 
of those to whom they were dear. 

The man of distinction lives for a time after 
death. His achievements and his character are 
held in appreciative remembrance by the com- 
mtmity and the generation he has served. The 
waves of his influence ripple out in a somewhat 
wider circle before being lost in the ocean of time. 
We call that man great to whom it is given so to 



Lincoln's Task Ended 203 

impress himself upon his fellow-men by deed, by 
creation, by service to the community, by char- 
acter, by the inspiration from on high that has 
been breathed through his soul, that he is not 
permitted to die. Such a man secures immor- 
tality in this world. The knowledge and the 
influence of his life are extended throughout 
mankind and his memory gathers increasing fame 
from generation to generation. 

It is thus that men are to-day honouring the 
memory of Abraham Lincoln. To-day, one hun- 
dred years after his birth, and nearly half a 
century since the dramatic close of his life's work, 
Lincoln stands enshrined in the thought and in 
the hearts of his countrymen. He is our " Father 
Abraham," belonging to us, his fellow-citizens, 
for ideals, for inspiration, and for affectionate 
regard; but he belongs now also to all mankind, 
for he has been canonised among the noblest of 
the world's heroes. 



APPENDIX 

THE ADDRESS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Delivered at Cooper Institute, New York, 
February 27, i860. 

With Introduction by Charles C. Nott; Historical 
and Analytical Notes by Charles C. Nott and Cephas 
Brainerd, and with the Correspondence between Mr. 
Lincoln and Mr. Nott as Representative of the 
Committee of the Young Men's Republican Union. 



90$ 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

The address delivered by Lincoln at the Cooper 
Institute in February, i860, in response to the 
invitation of certain representative New Yorkers, 
was, as well in its character as in its results, the 
most important of all of his utterances. 

The conscientious study of the historical and con- 
stitutional record, and the arguments and conclusions 
based upon the analysis of this record, were accepted 
by the Republican leaders as constituting the prin- 
ciples and the policy to be maintained during the 
Presidential campaign of i860, a campaign in which 
was involved not merely the election of a President, 
but the continued existence of the republic. 

Under the wise counsels represented by the words 
of Lincoln, the election was fought out substantially 
on two contentions : 

First, that the compact entered into by the Fathers 

and by their immediate successors should be loyally 

carried out, and that slavery should not be interfered 

with in the original slave States, or in the additional 

territory that had been conceded to it under the 

Missouri Compromise; and, secondly, that not a single 

further square mile of soil, that was still free, should 

207 



2o8 Appendix 

be left available, or should be made available, for 
the incursion of slavery. 

It was the conviction of Lincoln and of his asso- 
ciates, as it had been the conviction of the Fathers, 
that under such a restriction slavery must certainly 
in the near future come to an end. It was because 
these convictions, both in the debates with Douglas 
and in the Cooper Institute speech, were presented 
by Lincoln more forcibly and more conclusively than 
had been done by any other political leader, that 
Lincoln secured the nomination and the presidency. 
The February address was assuredly a deciding factor 
in the great issue of the time, and it certainly belongs, 
therefore, with the historic documents of the republic. 

G. H. P. 

New York, September i, 1909. 



CORRESPONDENCE WITH LINCOLN, NOTT, 
AND BRAINERD 

{From Robert Lincoln) 

Manchester, Vermont, 

July 27, 1909. 
Dear Major Putnam: 

Your letter of July 23rd reaches me here, and I 
beg to express my thanks for your kind remem- 
brances of me in London. ... I am much interested 
in learning that you were present at the time my 
father made his speech at Cooper Institute. I, of 
course, remember the occasion very well, although 
I was not present. I was at that time in the middle 
of my year at Phillips Exeter Academy, preparing 
for the Harvard entrance examination of the summer 
of i860. . . . After the Cooper Institute address, 
my father came to Exeter to see how I was getting 
along, and this visit resulted in his making a number 
of speeches in New England on his way and on his 
return, and at Exeter he wrote to my mother a letter 
which was mainly concerned with me, but which did 
make reference to these speeches. . . . He said that 
he had had some embarrassment with these New 

England speeches, because in coming East he had 

209 



2IO Appendix 

anticipated making no speech excepting the one at 
the Cooper Institute, and he had not prepared him- 
self for anything else. ... In the later speeches, 
he was addressing reading audiences who had, as 
he thought probable, seen the report of his Cooper 
Institute speech, and he was obliged, therefore, from 
day to day (he made about a dozen speeches in New 
England in all) to bear that fact in mind. 

Sincerely yours, 

Robert Lincoln. 

(From Judge Nott) 

WiLLIAMSTOWN, MasS., 

July 26, 1909. 
Dear Putnam: 

I consider it very desirable that the report of 
Mr. Lincoln's speech, embodying the final revision, 
should be preserved in book form. . . . The text 
in the pamphlet now in your hands is authentic 
and conclusive. Mr. Lincoln read the proof both 
of the address and of the notes. I am glad that 
you are to include in your reprint the letters from 
Mr. Lincoln, as these letters authenticate this copy 
of the address as the copy which was corrected by 
him with his own hand. . . . 

The preface to the address, written in September, 
i860, has interest because it shows what we thought 
of the address at that time. . . . Your worthy 



Correspondence 211 

father was, if I remember rightly, one of the vice- 
presidents of the meeting. . . . 

Yours faithfully, 

Charles C. Nott. 

(From Cephas Brainerd) 

New York, August 18, 1909. 
Dear Major Putnam: 

I am very glad to learn that there is good prospect 
that the real Lincoln Cooper Institute address, with 
the evidence in regard to it, will now be available 
for the public. ... I am glad also that with the 
address you are proposing to print the letters received 
by Judge Nott from Mr. Lincoln. One or two of 
these have, unfortunately, not been preserved. I 
recall in one an observation made by Lincoln to the 
effect that he "was not much of a literary man." 

I did not see much of Mr. Lincoln when he was 
in New York, as my most active responsibility in 
regard to the meeting was in getting up an audience. 
... I remember in handing some weeks earlier to 
John Sherman, who, like Lincoln, had never before 
spoken in New York, five ten-dollar gold pieces, 
that he said he " had not expected his expenses to 
be paid." At a lunch that was given to Sherman 
a long time afterward, I referred to that meeting. 
Sherman cocked his eye at me and said: "Yes, I 
remember it very well; I never was so scar't in all 
my life." . . . 



212 Appendix 

The observations of Judge Nott in regard to the 
meeting are about as just as anything that has ever 
been put into print, and as I concur fully in the 
accuracy of these recollections, I do not undertake 
to give my own impressions at any length. I was 
expecting to hear some specimen of Western stump- 
speaking as it was then understood. You will, of 
course, observe that the speech contains nothing of 
the kind. I do remember, however, that Lincoln 
spoke of the condition of feeling between the North 
and the South. . . . He refers to the treatment 
which Northern men received in the South, and he 
remarked, parenthetically, that he had never known 
of a man who had been able "to whip his wife into 
loving him," an observation that produced laughter. 

In making up the notes, we ransacked, as you may 
be sure, all the material available in the libraries 
in New York, and I also had interviews as to one 
special point with Mr. Bancroft, with Mr. Hildreth, 
and with Dr. William Goodell, who was in those 
times a famous anti-slavery man. 

Your father^ and William Curtis Noyes were pos- 
sibly more completely in sympathy than any other 
two men in New York, with the efforts of these 
younger men ; they impressed me as standing in that 
respect on the same plane. The next man to them 
was Charles Wyllis Elliott, the author of a History 
of New England. We never went to your father 

» The late George Palmer Putnam. 



Correspondence 213 

for advice or assistance when he failed to help us, 
and he was always so kindly and gentle in what 
he did and said that every one of us youngsters 
acquired for him a very great affection. He always 
had time to see us and was always on hand when 
he was wanted, and if we desired to have anything, 
we got it if he had it. Neither your father, nor 
Mr. Noyes, nor for that matter Mr. Elliott, ever 
suggested that we were "young" or "fresh" or 
anything of that sort. The enthusiasm which young 
fellows have was always recognised by these men 
as an exceedingly valuable asset in the cause. . . . 
Pardon all this from a " veteran," and believe me, 
Sincerely yours, 

Cephas Brainerd. 



INTRODUCTION 
By Charles C. Nott 

The Cooper Institute address is one of the most 
important addresses ever delivered in the life of this 
nation, for at an eventful time it changed the course 
of history. When Mr. Lincoln rose to speak on the 
evening of February 27, i860, he had held no admin- 
istrative office ; he had endeavoured to be appointed 
Commissioner of Patents, and had failed; he had 
sought to be elected United States Senator, and 
had been defeated; he had been a member of Con- 
gress, yet it was not even remembered; he was a 
lawyer in humble circumstances, persuasive of juries, 
but had not reached the front rank of the Illinois 
Bar. The record which Mr. Lincoln himself placed 
in the Congressional Directory in 1847 might still 
be taken as the record of his public and official life: 
" Born February 12th, 1809, in Hardin County, Ken- 
tucky. Education defective. Profession a lawyer. 
Have been a captain of volunteers in the Black Hawk 
War. Postmaster in a very small office. Four times 
a member of the Illinois Legislature and a member 
of the lower house of Congress." Was this the 
record of a man who should be made the head of a 

215 



2i6 Appendix 

nation in troubled times? In the estimation of 
thoughtful Americans east of the Alleghanies all 
that they knew of Mr. Lincoln justified them in 
regarding him as only "a Western stump orator" — 
successful, distinguished, but nothing higher than 
that — a Western stump orator, who had dared to 
brave one of the strongest men in the Western States, 
and who had done so with wonderful ability and 
moral success. When Mr. Lincoln closed his address 
he had risen to the rank of statesman, and had 
stamped himself a statesman peculiarly fitted for 
the exigency of the hour. 

Mr. William Cullen Bryant presided at the meeting; 
and a number of the first and ablest citizens of New 
York were present, among them Horace Greeley. 
Mr. Greeley was pronounced in his appreciation of 
the address; it was the ablest, the greatest, the wisest 
speech that had yet been made; it would reassure 
the conservative Northerner; it was just what was 
wanted to conciliate the excited Southerner; it was 
conclusive in its argument, and would assure the 
overthrow of Douglas. Mr. Horace White has re- 
cently written: "I chanced to open the other day 
his Cooper Institute speech. This is one of the few 
printed speeches that I did not hear him deliver in 
person. As I read the concluding pages of that 
speech, the conflict of opinion that preceded the 
conflict of arms then sweeping upon the country 
like an approaching solar eclipse seemed prefigured 



Introduction 217 

like a chapter of the Book of Fate. Here again he 
was the Old Testament prophet, before whom Horace 
Greeley bowed his head, saying that he had never 
listened to a greater speech, although he had heard 
several of Webster's best." Later, Mr. Greeley be- 
came the leader of the Republican forces opposed 
to the nomination of Mr. Seward and was instru- 
mental in concentrating those forces upon Mr . Lincoln. 
Furthermore, the great New York press on the fol- 
lowing morning carried the address to the country, 
and before Mr. Lincoln left New York he was tele- 
graphed from Connecticut to come and aid in the 
campaign of the approaching spring election. He 
went, and when the fateful moment came in the 
Convention, Connecticut was one of the Eastern 
States which first broke away from the Seward 
column and went over to Mr. Lincoln. When Con- 
necticut did this, the die was cast. 

It is difficult for younger generations of Americans 
to believe that three months before Mr. Lincoln was 
nominated for the Presidency he was neither appre- 
ciated nor known in New York. That fact can be 
better established by a single incident than by the 
opinions and assurances of a dozen men. 

After the address had been delivered, Mr. Lincoln 
was taken by two members of the Young Men's 
Central Republican Union — Mr. Hiram Barney, 
afterward Collector of the Port of New York, and 
Mr. Nott, one of the subsequent editors of the ad- 



2i8 Appendix 

dress — to their club, The Athenasum, where a very 
simple supper was ordered, and five or six Repub- 
lican members of the club who chanced to be in 
the building were invited in. The supper was in- 
formal — as informal as anything could be; the con- 
versation was easy and familiar; the prospects of 
the Republican party in the coming struggle were 
talked over, and so little was it supposed by the 
gentlemen who had not heard the address that Mr. 
Lincoln could possibly be the candidate that one of 
them, Mr. Charles W. Elliott, asked, artlessly: "Mr. 
Lincoln, what candidate do you really think would be 
most likely to carry Illinois?" Mr. Lincoln answered 
by illustration: "Illinois is a peculiar State, in three 
parts. In northern Illinois, Mr. Seward would have a 
larger majority than I could get. In middle Illinois, I 
think I could call out a larger vote than Mr. Seward. 
In southern Illinois, it would make no difference who 
was the candidate." This answer was taken to be 
merely illustrative by everybody except, perhaps, 
Mr. Barney and Mr. Nott, each of whom, it subse- 
quently appeared, had particularly noted Mr. Lin- 
coln's reply. 

The little party broke up. Mr. Lincoln had been 
cordially received, but certainly had not been flattered. 
The others shook him by the hand and, as they put on 
their overcoats, said: "Mr. Nott is going down town 
and he will show you the way to the Astor House. " 
Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Nott started on foot, but the 



Introduction 219 

latter observing that Mr. Lincoln was apparently 
Walking with some difficulty said, "Are you lame, 
Mr. Lincoln?" He replied that he had on new boots 
and they hurt him. The two gentlemen then boarded 
a street car. When they reached the place where 
Mr. Nott would leave the car on his way home, he 
shook Mr. Lincoln by the hand and, bidding him 
good-bye, told him that this car would carry him to the 
side door of the Astor House. Mr. Lincoln went on 
alone, the only occupant of the car. The next time 
he came to New York, he rode down Broadway to the 
Astor House standing erect in an open barouche 
drawn by four white horses. He bowed to the patri- 
otic thousands in the street, on the sidewalks, in the 
windows, on the house-tops, and they cheered him as 
the lawfully elected President of the United States 
and bade him go on and, with God's help, save the 
Union. 

His companion in the street car has often wondered 
since then what Mr. Lincoln thought about during 
the remainder of his ride that night to the Astor 
House. The Cooper Institute had, owing to a snow- 
storm, not been full, and its intelligent, respect- 
able, non-partisan audience had not rung out enthusi- 
astic applause like a concourse of Western auditors 
magnetised by their own enthusiasm. Had the 
address — the most carefully prepared, the most 
elaborately investigated and demonstrated and 
verified of all the work of his life — been a failure.'' 



2 20 Appendix 

But in the matter of quality and ability, if not of 
quantity and enthusiasm, he had never addressed 
such an audience; and some of the ablest men in the 
Northern States had expressed their opinion of the 
address in terms which left no doubt of the highest 
appreciation. Did Mr. Lincoln regard the address 
which he had just delivered to a small and critical 
audience as a success? Did he have the faintest 
glimmer of the brilliant effect which was to follow? 
Did he feel the loneliness of the situation — the 
want of his loyal Illinois adherents? Did his sink- 
ing heart infer that he was but a speck of humanity 
to which the great city would never again give a 
thought? He was a plain man, an ungainly man; 
unadorned, apparently uncultivated, showing the 
awkwardness of self-conscious rusticity. His dress 
that night before a New York audience was the most 
unbecoming that a fiend's ingenuity could have 
devised for a tall, gaunt man — a black frock coat, ill- 
setting and too short for him in the body, skirt, and 
arms — a rolling collar, low-down, disclosing his long 
thin, shrivelled throat uncovered and exposed. 
No man in all New York appeared that night more 
simple, more unassuming, more modest, more un- 
pretentious, more conscious of his own defects than 
Abraham Lincoln ; and yet we now know that within 
his soul there burned the fires of an unbounded am- 
bition, sustained by a self-reliance and self-esteem 
that bade him fix his gaze upon the very pinnacle of 



Introduction 221 

American fame and aspire to it in a time so troubled 
that its dangers appalled the soul of every American. 
What were this man's thoughts when he was left 
alone? Did a faint shadow of the future rest upon 
his soul? Did he feel in some mysterious way that 
on that night he had crossed the Rubicon of his life- 
march — that care and trouble and political discord, 
and slander and misrepresentation and ridicule and 
public responsibilities, such as hardly ever before 
burdened a conscientious soul, coupled with war 
and defeat and disaster, were to be thenceforth his 
portion nearly to his life's end, and that his end was 
to be a bloody act which would appal the world and 
send a thrill of horror through the hearts of friends 
and enemies alike, so that when the woeful tidings 
came the bravest of the Southern brave should burst 
into tears and cry aloud, "Oh! the unhappy South, 
the unhappy South!" 

The impression left on his companion's mind as he 
gave a last glance at him in the street car was that 
he seemed sad and lonely; and when it was too late, 
when the car was beyond call, he blamed himself 
for not accompanying Mr. Lincoln to the Astor 
House — not because he was a distinguished stranger, 
but because he seemed a sad and lonely man. 

February 12, igo8. 



CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. LINCOLN 

69 Wall St., New York, 

February 9, i860. 
Dear Sir: 

The "Yoimg Men's Central Republican Union" of 
this city very cordially desire that you should deliver 
during the ensuing month — what I may term — a 
political lecture. The peculiarities of the case are 
these — A series of lectures has been determined 
upon— The first was delivered by Mr. Blair of St. 
Louis a short time ago — the second will be in a few 
days by Mr. C. M. Clay, and the third we would 
prefer to have from you, rather than from any other 
person. Of the audience I should add that it is not 
that of an ordinary political meeting. These lectures 
have been contrived to call out our better, but busier 
citizens, who never attend political meetings. A 
large part of the audience would also consist of 
ladies. The time we should prefer, would be about 
the middle of March, but if any earlier or later day 
will be more convenient for you we would alter our 
arrangements. 

Allow me to hope that we shall have the pleasure of 

welcoming you to New York. You are, I believe, 

223 



224 Appendix 

an entire stranger to your Republican brethren here ; 
but they have, for you, the highest esteem, and your 
celebrated contest with Judge Douglas awoke their 
warmest sympathy and admiration. Those of us 
who are "in the ranks" would regard your presence 
as very material aid, and as an honor and pleasure 
which I cannot sufficiently express. 

Respectfully, 

Charles C. Nott. 
To Hon. Abram Lincoln. 



69 Wall St., New York, 

May 23, i860. 
Dear Sir: 

I enclose a copy of your address in New York. 

We (the Young Men's Rep. Union) design to publish 
a new edition in larger type and better form, with such 
notes and references as will best attract readers seek- 
ing information. Have you any memoranda of your 
investigations which you would approve of inserting? 

You and your Western friends, I think, underrate 
this speech. It has produced a greater effect here than 
any other single speech. It is the real platform in the 
Eastern States, and must carry the conservative 
element in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. 

Therefore I desire that it should be as nearly 
perfect as may be. Most of the emendations are 
trivial and do not affect the substance — all are merely 
suggested for your judgment. 



Correspondence with Mr. Lincoln 225 

I cannot help adding that this speech is an extraor- 
dinary example of condensed English. After some 
experience in criticising for Reviews, I find hardly 
anything to touch and nothing to omit. It is the only 
one I know of which I cannot shorten, and — like a 
good arch — moving one word tumbles a whole sentence 
down. 

Finally — it being a bad and foolish thing for a candi- 
date to write letters, and you having doubtless more 
to do of that than is pleasant or profitable, we will 
not add to your burden in that regard, but if you will 
let any friend who has nothing to do, advise us as to 
your wishes, in this or any other matter, we will try to 
carry them out. 

Respectfully, 

Charles C. Nott. 
To Hon. Abraham Lincoln. 



Springfield, Ills., May 31, i860. 
Charles C. Nott, Esq. 

My Dear Sir: 

Yours of the 23rd, accompanied by a copy of the 
speech delivered by me at the Cooper Institute, and 
upon which you have made some notes for emenda- 
tions, was received some days ago — Of course I would 
not object to, but would be pleased rather, with a 
more perfect edition of that speech. 

I did not preserve memoranda of my investiga- 
tions; and I could not now re-examine, and make 



226 Appendix 

notes, without an expenditure of time which I can 
not bestow upon it — Some of your notes I do not 
understand. 

So far as it is intended merely to improve in 
grammar, and elegance of composition, I am quite 
agreed; but I do not wish the sense changed, or 
modified, to a hair's breadth — And you, not having 
studied the particular points so closely as I have, can 
not be quite sure that you do not change the sense 
when you do not intend it — For instance, in a note at 
bottom of first page, you propose to substitute 
"Democrats" for "Douglas" — But what I am say- 
ing there is true of Douglas, and is not true of ' ' Demo- 
crats" generally; so that the proposed substitution 
would be a very considerable blunder — Your proposed 
insertion of "residences" though it would do little 
or no harm, is not at all necessary to the sense I was 
tr5Hng to convey — On page 5 your proposed gram- 
matical change would certainly do no harm — The 
' ' impudently absurd " I stick to —The striking out "he" 
and inserting "we" turns the sense exactly wrong — 
The striking out "upon it" leaves the sense too general 
and incomplete — The sense is "act as they acted 
upon that question" — not as they acted generally. 

After considering your proposed changes on page 7, 
I do not think them material, but I am willing to defer 
to you in relation to them. 

On page 9, striking out "to us" is probably right — 
The word "lawyer's" I wish retained. The word 



Correspondence with Mr. Lincoln 227 

"Courts" struck out twice, I wish reduced to "Court" 
and retained — "Court" as a collection more properly 
governs the plural "have" as I understand — "The" 
preceding "Court," in the latter case, must also be 
retained — The words "quite," "as," and "or" on the 
same page, I wish retained. The italicising, and 
quotation marking, I have no objection to. 

As to the note at bottom, I do not think any too 
much is admitted — What you propose on page 11 is 
right — I return your copy of the speech, together with 
one printed here, under my own hasty supervising. 
That at New York was printed without any super- 
vision by me — If you conclude to publish a new 
edition, allow me to see the proof-sheets. 

And now thanking you for your very complimen- 
tary letter, and your interest for me generally, I 
subscribe myself. 

Your friend and servant, 

A. Lincoln. 



69 Wall Street, New York. 
August 28, i860. 
Dear Sir: 

Mr. Judd insists on our printing the revised edition 
of your Cooper Ins. speech without waiting to send 
you the proofs. 

If this is so determined, I wish you to know, that 



228 Appendix 

I have made no alterations other than those you 
sanctioned, except — 

1. I do not find that Abraham Baldwin voted on 
the Ordinance of 87. On the contrary he appears not 
to have acted with Congress during the sitting of the 
Convention. Wm. Pierce seems to have taken his 
place then ; and his name is recorded as voting for the 
Ordinance. This makes no difference in the result, 
but I presume you will not wish the historical in- 
accuracy (if it is such) to stand. I will therefore 
(unless you write to the contrary) strike out his name 
in that place and reduce the number from "four" to 
"three" where you sum up the number of times he 
voted. 

2. In the quotations from the Constitution I have 
given its exact language; as "delegated" instead 
of "granted," etc. As it is given in quo. marks, I 
presume the exact letter of the text should be 
followed. 

// these are not correct please write immediately. 
Our apology for the delay is that we have been 
weighed down by other matters ; mine that I have but 
to-day returned to town. 

Respectfully, 

Charles C. Nott. 
To Hon. Abraham Lincoln. 



Correspondence with Mr. Lincoln 229 

69 Wall Street, N. Y. 
Sept. 17, i860. 
Dear Sir: 

We forward you by this day's express 250 copies, 
with the last corrections. I delayed sending, think- 
ing that you would prefer these to those first printed. 
The "Abraham Baldwin letter" referred to in your 
last I regret to say has not arrived. From your not 
touching the proofs in that regard, I inferred (and 
hope) that the correction was not itself an error. 

Should you wish a larger number of copies do not 
hesitate to let us know ; it will afford us much pleasure 
to furnish them and no inconvenience whatever. 

Respectfully, etc., 

Charles C. Nott. 
Hon. A. Lincoln. 



Springfield, Ills., Sept. 22, i860. 
Charles C. Nott, Esq., 

My Dear Sir: 

Yours of the 17th was duly received — The 250 
copies have not yet arrived — I am greatly obliged to 
you for what you have done, and what you propose 
to do. 

The "Abraham Baldwin letter" in substance was 
that I could not find the Journal of the Confederation 
Congress for the session at which was passed the 



230 Appendix 

Ordinance of 1787 — and that in stating Mr. Baldwin 
had voted for its passage, I had relied on a comraimica- 
ton of Mr. Greeley, over his own signature, published 
in the New York Weekly Tribune of October 15, 1859. 
If you will turn to that paper, you will there see 
that Mr, Greeley apparently copies from the Journal, 
and places the name of Mr. Baldwin among those of 
the men who voted for the measure. 

Still, if the Journal itself shows differently, of 
course it is right. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



The Address of 

The Hon. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

In Vindication of the Policy of the Framers of the 

Constitution and the Principles of the 

Republican Party. 

Delivered at Cooper Institute, February 27th, i860. 

Issued by the Young Men's Republican Union. 

With Notes by 

Charles C. Nott and Cephas Brainerd, 

Members of the Board of Control. 



231 



OFFICERS OF THE UNION 

CHARLES T. RODGERS, President. 
DEXTER A. HAWKINS, Vice-PresidenU 
ERASMUS STERLING, Secretary. 
WILLIAM M. FRANKLIN, Treasurer. 

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
CEPHAS BRAINERD, Chairman. 

BENJAMIN P. MANIERRE, P. G. DEGRAW, 

RICHARD c. Mccormick, james h. welsh, 

CHARLES C. NOTT, E. C. JOHNSON, 

CHARLES H. COOPER, LEWIS M. PECK. 

ADVISORY BOARD 



WM. CULLEN BRYANT, 
DANIEL DREW, 
HIRAM BARNEY, 
WILLIAM V. BRADY, 
JOHN JAY, 
GEORGE W. BLUNT, 
HENRY A. HURLBUT, 
ABIJAH MANN, JR., 



HAMILTON FISH, 
FRANCIS HALL, 
HORACE GREELEY, 
CHARLES A. PEABODY, 
EDGAR KETCHUM, 
JAMES KELLY, 
GEORGE FOLSOM, 
WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES, 



BENJAMIN F. MANIERRE. 



332 



PREFACE 

This edition of Mr. Lincoln's address has been 
prepared and published by the Young Men's Republi- 
can Union of New York, to exemplify its wisdom, 
truthfulness, and learning. No one who has not 
actually attempted to verify its details can under- 
stand the patient research and historical labor which 
it embodies. The history of our earlier politics is 
scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pam- 
phlets, and letters; and these are defective in com- 
pleteness and accuracy of statement, and in indices 
and tables of contents. Neither can any one who 
has not travelled over this precise ground appreciate 
the accuracy of every trivial detail, or the self-denying 
impartiality with which Mr. Lincoln has turned 
from the testimony of "the Fathers," on the general 
question of slavery, to present the single question 
which he discusses. From the first line to the last — 
from his premises to his conclusion, he travels with 
swift, unerring directness which no logician ever 
excelled — an argument complete and full, without 
the affectation of learning, and without the stiffness 
which usually accompanies dates and details. A 
single, easy, simple sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon 

233 



234 Appendix 

words contains a chapter of history that, in some 
instances, has taken days of labor to verify and 
which must have cost the author months of in- 
vestigation to acquire. And, though the public 
should justly estimate the labor bestowed on the 
facts which are stated, they cannot estimate the 
greater labor involved on those which are omitted — 
how many pages have been read — how many works 
examined — ^what numerous statutes, resolutions, 
speeches, letters, and biographies have been looked 
through. Commencing with this address as a 
political pamphlet, the reader will leave it as an 
historical work — brief, complete, profound, im- 
partial, truthful — which will survive the time and the 
occasion that called it forth, and be esteemed here- 
after, no less for its intrinsic worth than its unpre- 
tending modesty. 

New York, September, i860. 



ADDRESS 

Mr President and Fellow-Citizens of New 
York: — The facts with which I shall deal this 
evening are mainly old and familiar ; nor is there any- 
thing new in the general use I shall make of them. 
If there shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of 
presenting the facts, and the inferences and observa- 
tions following that presentation. 

In his speech last autumn, at Columbus, Ohio, 
as reported in the New York Times, Senator Douglas 
said: 

"Our fathers, when they framed the Government under 
which we live, understood this question just as well, and 
even better than we do now. " 

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this 
discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise 
and an agreed starting-point for a discussion between 
Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed 
by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: 
"What was the understanding those fathers had of the 
question mentioned?" 

What is the frame of Government under which we 
live? 

The answer must be: "The Constitution of the 
United States." That Constitution consists of the 

235 



236 Appendix 

original, framed in 1787, (and under which the present 
Government first went into operation,) and twelve 
subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of 
which were framed in 1789. (i) 

Who were our fathers that framed the Constitu- 
tion? I suppose the "thirty-nine" who signed the 
original instrument may be fairly called our fathers 
who framed that part of the present Government. 
It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it 
is altogether true to say they fairly represented the 
opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at that 
time. Their names, being familiar to nearly all, 
and accessible to quite all, need not now be repeated. 
(2) 

I take these "thirty-nine" for the present, as 
being "our fathers who framed the Government 
under which we live." 

What is the question which, according to the text, 
those fathers understood "just as well, and even better 
than we do now"? 

It is this: Does the proper division of local from 
federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, 
forbid our Federal Government to control as to slavery 
in our Federal Territories? 

Upon this. Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, 
• and Republicans the negative. This affirmation and 
denial form an issue; and this issue — this question — 
is precisely what the text declares our fathers under- 
stood "better than we. " 



Address 237 

Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine," or 
any of them, ever acted upon this question; and if 
they did, how they acted upon it — how they expressed 
that better understanding. 

In 1784, three years before the Constitution — the 
United States then owning the Northwestern Territory, 
and no other, (3) the Congress of the Confederation 
had before them the question of prohibiting slav- 
ery in that Territory; and four of the "thirty-nine" 
who afterward framed the Constitution, were in that 
Congress, and voted on that question. Of these, 
Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh William- 
son voted for the prohibition, (4) thus showing that, 
in their understanding, no line dividing local from 
federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade 
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
federal territory. The other of the four — James 
M'Henry — voted against the prohibition, showing 
that, for some cause, he thought it improper to vote 
for it. (5) 

In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the 
Convention was in session framing it, and while the 
Northwestern Territory still was the only territory 
owned by the United States, the same question of pro- 
hibiting Slavery in the Territories again came before 
the Congress of the Confederation ; and two more of 
the "thirty-nine" who afterward signed the Consti- 
tution, were in that Congress, and voted on the ques- 
tion. They were William Blount and William Few (6) ; 



238 Appendix 

and they both voted for the prohibition — thus show- 
ing that, in their understanding, no line dividing 
local from federal authority, nor anything else, pro- 
perly forbade the Federal Government to control as 
to slavery in federal territory. This time, the pro- 
hibition became a law, being part of what is now well 
known as the Ordinance of '87. (7) 

The question of federal control of slavery in the 
territories, seems not to have been directly before the 
Convention which framed the original Constitution; 
and hence it is not recorded that the "thirty- 
nine," or any of them, while engaged on that in- 
strument, expressed any opinion on that precise 
question. (8) 

In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the 
Constitution, an act was passed to enforce the Ordi- 
nance of '87, including the prohibition of slavery in 
the Northwestern Territory. The bill for this act 
was reported by one of the "thirty-nine," Thomas 
Fitzsimmons, then a member of the House of Repre- 
sentatives from Pennsylvania. It went through all 
its stages without a word of opposition, and finally 
passed both branches without yeas and nays, which is 
equivalent to an unanimous passage. (9) In this Con- 
gress, there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers 
who framed the original Constitution. They were 
John Langdon, Nicholas Oilman, Wm. S. Johnson, 
Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos, Fitzsimmons, 
William Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William 



Address 239 

Paterson, George Clymer, Richard Bassett, George 
Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James Madison. 
(10) 

This shows that, in their understanding, no line 
dividing local from federal authority, nor anything 
in the Constitution, properly forbade Congress to 
prohibit slavery in the federal territory; else both 
their fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to 
support the Constitution, would have constrained 
them to oppose the prohibition. 

Again, George Washington, another of the " thirty- 
nine," was then President of the United States, and, 
as such, approved and signed the bill; thus completing 
its validity as a law, and thus showing that, in his 
understanding, no line dividing local from federal 
authority, nor anything in the Constitution, forbade 
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
federal territory. 

No great while after the adoption of the original 
Constitution, North Carolina ceded to the Federal 
Government the country now constituting the State 
of Tennessee; and a few years later Georgia ceded 
that which now constitutes the States of Missis- 
sippi and Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was 
made a condition by the ceding States that the Federal 
Government should not prohibit slavery in the ceded 
country, (i i) Besides this, slavery was then actually 
in the ceded country. Under these circumstances, 
Congress, on taking charge of these countries, did not 



240 Appendix 

absolutely prohibit slavery within them. But they 
did interfere with it — take control of it — even there, 
to a certain extent. In 1798, Congress organized 
the Territory of Mississippi. In the act of organiza- 
tion, they prohibited the bringing of slaves into the 
Territory, from any place without the United States, 
by fine, and giving freedom to slaves so brought.(i2) 
This act passed both branches of Congress without 
yeas and nays. In that Congress were three of the 
"thirty-nine" who framed the original Constitution. 
They were John Langdon, George Read and Abraham 
Baldwin. (13) They all, probably, voted for it. 
Certainly they would have placed their opposition to 
it upon record, if, in their understanding, any line 
dividing local from federal authority, or anything 
in the Constitution, properly forbade the Federal 
Government to control as to slavery in federal 
territory. 

In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the 
Louisiana country. Our former territorial acquisi- 
tions came from certain of our own States; but this 
Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation. 
In 1804, Congress gave a territorial organization to 
that part of it which now constitutes the State of 
Louisiana. New Orleans, lying within that part, 
was an old and comparatively large city. There 
were other considerable towns and settlements, and 
slavery was extensively and thoroughly intermingled 
with the people. Congress did not, in the Territorial 



Address 241 

Act, prohibit slavery; but they did interfere with it — 
take control of it — in a more marked and extensive 
way than they did in the case of Mississippi. The 
substance of the provision therein made, in relation 
to slaves, was: 

First. That no slave should be imported into the 
territory from foreign parts. 

Second. That no slave should be carried into it 
who had been imported into the United States since 
the first day of May, 1798. 

Third. That no slave should be carried into it, 
except by the owner, and for his own use as a settler; 
the penalty in all the cases being a fine upon the viola- 
tor of the law, and freedom to the slave. (14) 

This act also was passed without yeas and nays. 
In the Congress which passed it, there were two of the 
"thirty-nine." They were Abraham Baldwin and 
Jonathan Dayton. (15) As stated in the case of 
Mississippi, it is probable they both voted for it. 
They would not have allowed it to pass without record- 
ing their opposition to it, if, in their understanding, 
it violated either the line properly dividing local 
from federal authority, or any provision of the Con- 
stitution. 

In 1819-20, came and passed the Missouri question. 
Many votes were taken, by yeas and nays, in both 
branches of Congress, upon the various phases of 
the general question. Two of the "thirty-nine" — ■ 
Rufus King and Charles Pinckney — were members 
16 



242 Appendix 

of that Congress. (i6) Mr. King steadily voted for 
slavery prohibition and against all compromises, while 
Mr. Pinckney as steadily voted against slavery pro- 
hibition and against all compromises. By this, Mr. 
King showed that, in his understanding, no line divid- 
ing local from federal authority, nor anything in the 
Constitution, was violated by Congress prohibiting 
slavery in federal territory; while Mr. Pinckney, by 
his votes, showed that, in his understanding, there 
was some sufficient reason for opposing such prohibi- 
tion in that case. (17) 

The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the 
"thirty-nine," or of any of them, upon the direct 
issue, which I have been able to discover. 

To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as being 
four in 1784, two in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three 
in 1798, two in 1804, and two in 1819-20 — there 
would be thirty of them. But this would be count- 
ing John Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, 
Rufus King, and George Read each twice, and Abra- 
ham Baldwin three times. The true number of 
those of the "thirty-nine" whom I have shown to 
have acted upon the question, which, by the text, 
they understood better than we, is twenty-three, 
leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in 
any way. (18) 

Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty- 
nine fathers "who framed the Government under 
which we live," who have, upon their official respon- 



Address 243 

sibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very- 
question which the text affirms they "understood 
just as well, and even better than we do now"; and 
twenty-one of them — a clear majority of the whole 
"thirty-nine" — so acting upon it as to make them 
guilty of gross political impropriety and wilful per- 
jury, if, in their understanding, any proper division 
between local and federal authority, or anything in 
the Constitution they had made themselves, and 
sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government to 
control as to slavery in the federal territories. Thus 
the twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder 
than words, so actions under such responsibility speak 
still louder. 

Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional 
prohibition of slavery in the federal territories, in the 
instances in which they acted upon the question. But 
for what reasons they so voted is not known. They 
may have done so because they thought a proper 
division of local from federal authority, or some pro- 
vision or principle of the Constitution, stood in the 
way; or they may, without any such question, have 
voted against the prohibition on what appeared 
to them to be sufficient grounds of expediency. No 
one who has sworn to support the Constitution can 
conscientiously vote for what he understands to be an 
unconstitutional measure, however expedient he may 
think it; but one may and ought to vote against a 
measure which he deems constitutional, if, at the 



244 Appendix 

same time, he deems it inexpedient. It, therefore, 
would be unsafe to set down even the two who voted 
against the prohibition, as having done so because, 
in their understanding, any proper division of local 
from federal authority, or anything in the Constitu- 
tion, forbade the Federal Government to control as 
to slavery in federal territory. (19) 

The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine," so far 
as I have discovered, have left no record of their un- 
derstanding upon the direct question of federal con- 
trol of slavery in the federal territories. But there is 
much reason to believe that their understanding upon 
that question would not have appeared different from 
that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been 
manifested at all. (20) 

For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I 
have purposely omitted whatever understanding may 
have been manifested by any person, however dis- 
tinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers who 
framed the original Constitution; and, for the same 
reason, I have also omitted whatever understanding 
may have been manifested by any of the "thirty- 
nine " even, on any other phase of the general question 
of slavery. If we should look into their acts and 
declarations on those other phases, as the foreign 
slave trade, and the morality and policy of slavery 
generally, it would appear to us that on the direct 
question of federal control of slavery in federal terri- 
tories, the sixteen, if they had acted at all, would 



Address 245 

probably have acted just as the twenty-three did. 
Among that sixteen were several of the most noted 
anti-slavery men of those times — as Dr. Franklin, 
Alexander Hamilton, and Gouvemeur Morris — 
while there was not one now known to have been 
otherwise, unless it may be John Rutledge, of South 
Carolina. (21) 

The sum of the whole is, that of our thirty-nine 
fathers who framed the original Constitution, twenty- 
one — a clear majority of the whole — certainly under- 
stood that no proper division of local from federal 
authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade 
the Federal Government to control slavery in the 
federal territories; while all the rest probably had 
the same understanding. Such, unquestionably, was 
the understanding of our fathers who framed the 
original Constitution; and the text affirms that they 
understood the question "better than we." 

But, so far, I have been considering the understand- 
ing of the question manifested by the framers of the 
original Constitution. In and by the original in- 
strument, a mode was provided for amending it; and, 
as I have already stated, the present frame of "the 
Government under which we live" consists of that 
original, and twelve amendatory articles framed and 
adopted since. Those who now insist that federal 
control of slavery in federal territories violates the 
Constitution, point us to the provisions which they 
suppose it thus violates; and, as I understand, they 



246 Appendix 

all fix upon provisions in these amendatory articles 
and not in the original instrument. The Supreme 
Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon 
the fifth amendment, which provides that no person 
shall be deprived of " life, liberty or property without 
due process of law"; while Senator Douglas and his 
peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the tenth 
amendment, providing that "the powers not dele- 
gated to the United States by the Constitution" 
"are reserved to the States respectively, or to the 
people." (22) 

Now, it so happens that these amendments were 
framed by the first Congress which sat under the 
Constitution — the identical Congress which passed 
the act already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition 
of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. Not only 
was it the same Congress, but they were the identical 
same individual men who, at the same session, and at 
the same time within the session had under considera- 
tion, and in progress toward maturity, these Consti- 
tutional amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery 
in all the territory the nation then owned. The Con- 
stitutional amendments were introduced before, and 
passed after, the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87 ; 
so that, during the whole pendency of the act to 
enforce the Ordinance, the Constitutional amend- 
ments were also pending. (23) 

The seventy-six members of that Congress, includ- 
ing sixteen of the framers of the original Constitu- 



Address 247 

tion, as before stated, were pre-eminently our fathers 
who framed that part of "the Government under 
which we live," which is now claimed as forbidding 
the Federal Government to control slavery in the 
federal territories. 

Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this 
day to affirm that the two things which that Congress 
deliberately framed, and carried to maturity at the 
same time, are absolutely inconsistent with each 
other? And does not such affirmation become impu- 
dently absurd when coupled with the other affirma- 
tion from the same mouth, that those who did the two 
things, alleged to be inconsistent, understood whether 
they really were inconsistent better than we — better 
than he who affirms that they are inconsistent ? 

It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine 
framers of the original Constitution, and the seventy- 
six members of the Congress which framed the amend- 
ments thereto, taken together, do certainly include 
those who may be fairly called " our fathers who 
framed the Government under which we live." (24) 
And so assuming, I defy any man to show that any 
one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that, in 
his understanding, any proper division of local from 
federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, 
forbade the Federal Government to control as to 
slavery in the federal territories, I go a step further, 
I defy any one to show that any living man in the 
whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of 



248 Appendix 

the present century, (and I might almost say prior to 
the beginning of the last half of the present century,) 
declare that, in his understanding, any proper division 
of local from federal authority, or any part of the 
Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to 
control as to slavery in the federal territories. To 
those who now so declare, I give, not only " our fathers 
who framed the Government under which we live," 
but with them all other living men within the century 
in which it was framed, among whom to search, and 
they shall not be able to find the evidence of a single 
man agreeing with them. 

Now, and here, let me guard a little against being 
misunderstood. I do not mean to say we are bound 
to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To 
do so, would be to discard all the lights of current 
experience — to reject all progress — all improvement. 
What I do say is, that if we would supplant the opin- 
ions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should 
do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so 
clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered 
and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a 
case whereof we ourselves declare they understood 
the question better than we. 

If any man at this day sincerely believes that a 
proper division of local from federal authority, or any 
part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Govern- 
ment to control as to slavery in the federal territories, 
he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all 



Address 249 

truthful evidence and fair argument which he can. 
But he has no right to mislead others, who have less 
access to history, and less leisure to study it, into the 
false belief that " our fathers, who framed the Govern- 
ment under which we live," were of the same opinion 
— thus substituting falsehood and deception for truth- 
ful evidence and fair argument. If any man at this 
day sincerely believes " our fathers who framed the 
Government under which we live, " used and applied 
principles, in other cases, which ought to have led 
them to understand that a proper division of local 
from federal authority or some part of the Constitu- 
tion, forbids the Federal Government to control as 
to slavery in the federal territories, he is right to say 
so. But he should, at the same time, brave the 
responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he 
understands their principles better than they did 
themselves; and especially should he not shirk that 
responsibility by asserting that they "understood 
the question just as well, and even better, than we 
do now." 

But enough! Let all who believe that "our fathers, 
who framed the Government under which we live, 
understood this question just as well, and even better, 
than we do now, " speak as they spoke, and act as they 
acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask — all 
Republicans desire — in relation to slavery. As those 
fathers worked it, so let it be again marked, as an evil 
not to be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only 



250 Appendix 

because of and so far as its actual presence among us 
makes that toleration and protection a necessity. Let 
all the guaranties those fathers gave it, be, not grudgingly, 
but fully and fairly maintained. For this Republicans 
contend, and with this, so far as I know or believe, 
they will be content. 

And now, if they would listen — as I suppose they 
will not — I would address a few words to the Southern 
people. 

I would say to them: You consider yourselves a 
reasonable and a just people; and I consider that in 
the general qualities of reason and justice you are not 
inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak 
of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as 
reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. 
You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but 
nothing like it to "Black Republicans." In all your 
contentions with one another each of you deems an 
unconditional condemnation of "Black Republican- 
ism" as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, 
such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable 
prerequisite — licence, so to speak — among you to be 
admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can 
you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider 
whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves? 
Bring forward your charges and specifications, and 
then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify. 

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That 
makes an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. 



Address 251 

You produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that 
our party has no existence in your section — gets no 
votes in your section. The fact is substantially true ; 
but does it prove the issue? If it does, then in case 
we should, without change of principle, begin to 
get votes in your section, we should thereby cease to 
be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; 
and yet, are you willing to abide by it? If you are, 
you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be 
sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this 
very year. You will then begin to discover, as the 
truth plainly is, that your proof does not touch the 
issue. The fact that we get no votes in your section, 
is a fact of your making, and not of ours. And if 
there be fault in that fact, that fault is primarily 
yours, and remains so until you show that we repel 
you by some wrong principle or practice. If we do 
repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the 
fault is ours ; but this brings you to where you ought 
to have started — to a discussion of the right or wrong 
of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, 
would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or 
for any other object, then our principle, and we with 
it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and de- 
nounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of 
whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong 
your section; and so meet us as if it were possible 
that something may be said on our side. Do you ac- 
cept the challenge? No! Then you really believe 



2 52 Appendix 

that the principle which " our fathers who framed the 
Government under which we live" thought so clearly 
right as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, 
upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong 
as to demand your condemnation without a moment's 
consideration. 

Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warn- 
ing against sectional parties given by "Washington in 
his Farewell Address. Less than eight years before 
Washington gave that warning, he had, as President 
of the United States, approved and signed an act of 
Congress, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the 
Northwestern Territory, which act embodied the 
policy of the Government upon that subject up to and 
at the very moment he penned that warning; and 
about one year after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette 
that he considered that prohibition a wise measure, 
expressing in the same connection his hope that we 
should at some time have a confederacy of free States. 

(25) 

Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism 
has since arisen upon this same subject, is that warn- 
ing a weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands 
against you? Could Washington himself speak, 
would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon 
us, who sustain his policy, or upon you who repudiate 
it? We respect that warning of Washington, and we 
commend it to you, together with his example point- 
ing to the right application of it. 



Address 253 

But you say you are conservative — eminently 
conservative — while we are revolutionary, destructive, 
or something of the sort. What is conservatism? 
Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the 
new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the iden- 
tical old policy on the point in controversy which was 
adopted by " our fathers who framed the Government 
under which we live"; while you with one accord 
reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and 
insist upon substituting something new. True, you 
disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute 
shall be. You are divided on new propositions and 
plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and de- 
nouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you 
are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a 
Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories ; some for 
Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery 
within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in 
the Territories through the judiciary; some for the 
"gur-reat pur-rinciple " that "if one man would 
enslave another, no third man should object," 
fantastically called "Popular Sovereignty"; but 
never a man among you in favor of federal prohibi- 
tion of slavery in federal territories, according to the 
practice of " our fathers who framed the Government 
under which we live." Not one of all your various 
plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the 
century within which our Government originated. 
Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism 



254 Appendix 

for yourselves, and your charge of destructiveness 
against us, are based on the most clear and stable 
foundations. 

Again, you say we have made the slavery question 
more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. 
We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that 
we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded 
the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still 
resist, your innovation; and thence comes the greater 
prominence of the question. Would you have that 
question reduced to its former proportions ? Go back 
to that old policy. What has been will be again, 
under the same conditions. If you would have the 
peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and policy 
of the old times. 

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your 
slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's 
Ferry ! John Brown ! ! John Brown was no Republi- 
can; and you have failed to implicate a single Republi- 
can in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member 
of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or 
you do not know it. If you do know it, you are in- 
excusable for not designating the man and proving 
the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable 
for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the 
assertion after you have tried and failed to make the 
proof. You need not be told that persisting in a 
charge which one does not know to be true, is simply 
malicious slander. (26) 



Address 255 

Some of you admit that no Republican designedly 
aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair; but 
still insist that our doctrines and declarations neces- 
sarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. 
We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no de- 
claration, which was not held to and made by "our 
fathers who framed the Government under which we 
live." You never dealt fairly by us in relation to 
this affair. When it occurred, some important State 
elections were near at hand, and you were in evident 
glee with the belief that, by charging the blame upon 
us, you could get an advantage of us in those elections. 
The elections came, and your expectations were not 
quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, 
as to himself at least, your charge was a slander, and 
he was not much inclined by it to cast his vote in 
your favor. Republican doctrines and declarations 
are accompanied with a continual protest against 
any interference whatever with your slaves, or with 
you about your slaves. Surely, this does not en- 
courage them to revolt. True, we do, in common 
with "our fathers, who framed the Government 
under which we live," declare our belief that slavery 
is wrong; but the slaves do not hear us declare even 
this. For anything we say or do, the slaves would 
scarcely know there is a Republican party. I be- 
lieve they would not, in fact, generally know it but 
for your misrepresentations of us, in their hearing. In 
your political contests among yourselves, each faction 



256 Appendix 

charges the other with sympathy with Black Re- 
publicanism; and then, to give point to the charge, 
defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrec- 
tion, blood and thunder among the slaves. 

Slave insurrections are no more common now than 
they were before the Republican party was organized. 
What induced the Southampton insurrection, twenty- 
eight years ago, in which, at least, three times as 
many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry? (27) You 
can scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the 
conclusion that Southampton was " got up by 
Black Republicanism." In the present state of 
things in the United States, I do not think a general, or 
even a very extensive slave insurrection, is possible. 
The indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. 
The slaves have no means of rapid communication ; nor 
can incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. 
The explosive materials are ever5rwhere in parcels; 
but there neither are, nor can be supplied, the indis- 
pensable connecting trains. 

Much is said by Southern people about the affec- 
tion of slaves for their masters and mistresses; and a 
part of it, at least, is true. A plot for an uprising 
could scarcely be devised and communicated to 
twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the 
life of a favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. 
This is the rule ; and the slave revolution in Hayti was 
not an exception to it, but a case occurring under 
peculiar circumstances. (28) The gunpowder plot of 



Address 257 

British history, though not connected with slaves, 
was more in point. In that case, only about twenty 
were admitted to the secret ; and yet one of them, in 
his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that 
friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity. 
Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or 
stealthy assassinations in the field, and local revolts 
extending to a score or so, will continue to occur as 
the natural results of slavery; but no general insurrec- 
tion of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country 
for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes 
for such an event, will be alike disappointed. 

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years 
ago, " It is still in our power to direct the process of 
emancipation, and deportation, peaceably, and in 
such slow degrees, as that the evil will wear off 
insensibly; and their places be, pari passu, filled up by 
free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left 
to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the 
prospect held up." (29) 

Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that 
the power of emancipation is in the Federal Govern- 
ment. He spoke of Virginia; and, as to the power of 
emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding States only. 
The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has 
the power of restraining the extension of the institu- 
tion — the power to insure that a slave insurrection 
shall never occur on any American soil which is now 

free from slavery. 
17 



258 Appendix 

John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a 
slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men 
to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves 
refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that 
the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough 
it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, 
corresponds with the many attempts, related in 
history, at the assassination of kings and emperors. 
An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people 
till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to 
liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which 
ends in little else than his own execution. Orsini's 
attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's at- 
tempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, 
precisely the same. The eagerness to cast blame on 
old England in the one case, and on New England in 
the other, does not disprove the sameness of the two 
things. 

And how much would it avail you, if you could, by 
the use of John Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, 
break up the Republican organization? Human 
action can be modified to some extent, but human 
nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a 
feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at 
least a million and a half of votes. You cannot 
destroy that judgment and feeling — that sentiment — 
by breaking up the political organization which rallies 
around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an 
army which has been formed into order in the face of 



Address 259 

your heaviest fire; but if you could, how much would 
you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it 
out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into 
some other channel ? What would that other channel 
probably be ? Would the number of John Browns be 
lessened or enlarged by the operation? 

But you will break up the Union rather than submit 
to a denial of your Constitutional rights. (30) 

That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would 
be palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, 
by the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some 
right, plainly written down in the Constitution. But 
we are proposing no such thing. 

When you make these declarations, you have a 
specific and well-understood allusion to an assumed 
Constitutional right of yours, to take slaves into the 
federal territories, and to hold them there as property. 
But no such right is specifically written in the Constitu- 
tion. That instrument is literally silent about any 
such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a 
right has any existence in the Constitution, even by 
implication. 

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is, that you will 
destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to 
construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, 
on all points in dispute between you and us. You 
will rule or ruin in all events. 

This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps 
you will say the Supreme Court has decided the 



26o Appendix 

disputed Constitutional question in your favor. Not 
quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction 
between dictum and decision, the Court have decided 
the question for you in a sort of way. The Court 
have substantially said, it is your Constitutional right 
to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold 
them there as property. When I say the decision was 
made in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided 
Court, by a bare majority of the Judges, and they not 
quite agreeing with one another in the reasons for 
making it ; (31) that it is so made as that its avowed 
supporters disagree with one another about its mean- 
ing, and that it was mainly based upon a mistaken 
statement of fact — the statement in the opinion that 
" the right of property in a slave is distinctly and 
expressly affirmed in the Constitution. " (32) 

An inspection of the Constitution will show that 
the right of property in a slave is not " distinctly and 
expressly affirmed" in it. Bear in mind, the Judges 
do not pledge their judicial opinion that such right is 
impliedly affirmed in the Constitution; but they 
pledge their veracity that it is "distinctly and ex- 
pressly'' affirmed there — "distinctly," that is, not 
mingled with anything else — "expressly," that is, in 
words meaning just that, without the aid of any in- 
ference, and susceptible of no other meaning. 

If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that 
such right is affirmed in the instrument by implica- 
tion, it would be open to others to show that neither 



Address 261 

the word "slave" nor "slavery" is to be found in the 
Constitution, nor the word "property" even, in 
any connection with language alluding to the things 
slave, or slavery, and that wherever in that instru- 
ment the slave is alluded to, he is called a "person"; 
— and wherever his master's legal right in relation to 
him is alluded to, it is spoken of as " service or labor 
which may be due," — as a debt payable in service or 
labor. (33) Also, it would be open to show, by con- 
temporaneous history, that this mode of alluding to 
slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was 
employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution 
the idea that there could be property in man. 

To show all this, is easy and certain. (34) 

When this obvious mistake of the Judges shall be 
brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect 
that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and 
reconsider the conclusion based upon it? 

And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers, 
who framed the Government under which we live" — 
the men who made the Constitution — decided this 
same Constitutional question in our favor, long ago — 
decided it without division among themselves, when 
making the decision; without division among them- 
selves about the meaning of it after it was made, and, 
so far as any evidence is left, without basing it upon 
any mistaken statement of facts. 

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel 
yourselves justified to break up this Government, 



2 62 Appendix 

unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at 
once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of poli- 
tical action? But you will not abide the election of a 
Republican President! In that supposed event, you 
say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, 
the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us ! 
That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, 
and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver 
or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!" 

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me — my 
money — was my own ; and I had a clear right to keep 
it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my 
own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my 
money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, 
to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in 
principle. 

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly 
desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall 
be at peace and in harmony, one with another. Let 
us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though 
much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and 
ill temper. Even though the Southern people will not 
so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their 
demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of 
our duty, we possibly can. (35) Judging by all they 
say and do, and by the subject and nature of their 
controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what 
will satisfy them. 

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be uncondi- 



Address 263 

tionally surrendered to them? We know they will 
not. In all their present complaints against us, the 
Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and 
insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them, 
if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions 
and insurrections? We know it will not. We so 
know, because we know we never had anything to 
do with invasions and insurrections; and yet this 
total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge 
and the denunciation. 

The question recurs, what will satisfy them ? Simply 
this: We must not only let them alone, but we must, 
somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. 
This , we know by experience, is no easy task. We have 
been so trying to convince them from the very begin- 
ning of our organization, but with no success. In all 
our platforms and speeches we have constantly 
protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has 
had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing 
to convince them, is the fact that they have never 
detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them. 

These natural, and apparently adequate means all 
failing, what will convince them? This, and this 
only ; cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in call- 
ing it right. And this must be done thoroughly — 
done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be 
tolerated — we must place ourselves avowedly with 
them. Senator Douglas's new sedition law must be 
enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations 



264 Appendix 

that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, 
in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest 
and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. 
We must pull down our Free State constitutions. 
The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all 
taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease 
to believe that all their troubles proceed from us. 

I am quite aware they do not state their case pre- 
cisely in this way. Most of them would probably say 
to us, " Let us alone, do nothing to us, and say what 
you please about slavery. " But we do let them alone 
— have never disturbed them — so that, after all, it is 
what we say, which dissatisfies them. They will 
continue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying. 

I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, 
demanded the overthrow of our Free-State Constitu- 
tions. (36) Yet those Constitutions declare the wrong 
of slavery, with more solemn emphasis, than do all 
other sayings against it; and when all these other 
sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of 
these Constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be 
left to resist the demand. It is nothing to the con- 
trary, that they do not demand the whole of this just 
now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason 
they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of 
this consummation. Holding, as they do, that 
slavery is morally right, and socially elevating, they 
cannot cease to demand a full national recognition 
of it, as a legal right, and a social blessing. (37) 



Address 265 

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground 
save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery 
is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against 
it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and 
swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object 
to its nationality — its universality ; if it is wrong, they 
cannot justly insist upon its extension — its enlarge- 
ment. All they ask, we could readily grant, if we 
thought slavery right ; all we ask, they could as readily 
grant, if they thought it wrong. (38) Their thinking 
it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact 
upon which depends the whole controversy. Think- 
ing it right, as they do, they are not to blame for 
desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, think- 
ing it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can 
we cast our votes with their view, and against our 
own? In view of our moral, social, and political 
responsibilities, can we do this? 

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to 
let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the 
necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation ; 
but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to 
spread into the National Territories, and to overrun 
us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty 
forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly 
and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those 
sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so indus- 
triously plied and belabored — contrivances such as 
groping for some middle ground between the right 



266 Appendix 

and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who 
should be neither a living man nor a dead man — such 
as a policy of " don't care" on a question about which 
all true men do care — such as Union appeals beseech- 
ing true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing 
the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the 
righteous to repentance — such as invocations to 
Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washing- 
ton said, and undo what Washington did. 

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false 
accusations against us, nor frightened from it by 
menaces of destruction to the Government nor of 
dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that 

RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, 
TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDER- 
STAND IT. 



NOTES 

Note i. — The Constitution is attested September 17, 1787. 
It was ratified by all of the States, excepting North Carolina 
and Rhode Island, in 1788, and went into operation on the 
first Wednesday in January, 1789. The first Congress pro- 
posed, in 1789, ten articles of amendments, all of which were 
ratified. Article XL of the amendments was prepared by 
the Third Congress, in 1794, and Article XII. by the Eighth 
Congress, in 1803. Another Article was proposed by the 
Eleventh Congress, prohibiting citizens from receiving titles 
of nobility, presents or offices, from foreign nations. Although 
this has been printed as one of the amendments, it was in 
fact never ratified, being approved by but twelve States. 
Vide Message of President Monroe, Feb. 4, 181 8. 

Note 2. — The Convention consisted of sixty-five memhers. 
Of these, ten did not attend the Convention, and sixteen did 
not sign the Constitution. Of these sixteen, six refused to 
sign, and published their reasons for so refusing, viz.: Robert 
Yates and John Lansing, of New- York; Edmund Randolph 
and George Mason, of Virginia; Luther Martin, of Maryland, 
and Elbridge Gerry, of Mass. Alexander Hamilton alone 
subscribed for New- York, and Rhode Island was not repre- 
sented in the Convention. The names of the "thirty-nine," 
and the States which they represented are subsequently 
given. 

Note 3. — The cession of Territory was authorized by New- 
York, Feb. 19, 1780; by Virginia, January 2, i78i,and again, 
(without certain conditions at first imposed,) "at their ses- 
sions, begun on the 20th day of October, 1783;" by Mass., 
Nov. 13, 1784; by Conn., May — , 1786; by S. Carolina, March 
8, 1787; by N. Carolina, Dec. — , 1789; and by Georgia at 
some time prior to April, 1802. 

The deeds of cession were executed by New- York, March i, 
267 



268 Appendix 

1781; by Virginia, March i, 1784; by Mass., April 19, 1785; 
by Conn., Sept. 13, 1786; by S. Carolina, August 9, 1787; 
by N. Carolina, Feb. 25, 1790; and by Georgia, April 24, 1802. 
Five of these grants were therefore made before the adoption 
of the Constitution, and one afterward; while the sixth (North 
Carolina) was authorized before, and consummated after- 
ward. The cession of this State contains the express proviso 
"that no regulations made, or to be made by Congress, shall 
tend to emancipate slaves." The cession of Georgia conveys 
the Territory subject to the Ordinance of '87, except the 
provision prohibiting slavery. 

These dates are also interesting in connection with the 
extraordinary assertions of Chief Justice Taney, (19 How., 
page 434,) that "the example of Virginia was soon afterwards 
followed by other States," and that (p. 436) the power in 
the Constitution "to dispose of and make all needful rules 
and regulations respecting the Territory or other property 
belonging to the United States," was intended only "to 
transfer to the new Government the property then held in 
common," "and has no reference whatever to any Territory 
or other property which the new sovereignty might after- 
wards itself acquire." On this subject, vide Federalist, 
No. 43, sub. 4 and 5. 

Note 4. — Sherman was from Connecticut; Mifflin from 
Penn.; Williamson from North Carolina, and M'Henry from 
Maryland. 

Note 5. — What Mr. M'Henry 's views were, it seems im- 
possible to ascertain. When the Ordinance of '87 was passed 
he was sitting in the Convention. He was afterwards ap- 
pointed Secretary of War; yet no record has thus far been 
discovered of his opinion. Mr. M'Henry also wrote a bio- 
graphy of La Fayette, which, however, cannot be found in 
any of the public libraries, among which may be mentioned 
the State Library at Albany, and the Astor, Society, and 
Historical Society Libraries, at New York. 

Hamilton says of him, in a letter to Washington {Works, 
vol. vi., p. 65): "M'Henry you know. He would give no 
strength to the Administration, but he would not disgrace 
the office; his views are good." 

Note 6. — William Blount was from North Carolina, and 



Notes 269 

William Few from Georgia — the two States which afterward 
ceded their Territory to the United States. In addition 
to these facts the following extract from the speech of Rufus 
King in the Senate, on the Missouri Bill, shows the entire 
unanimity with which the Southern States approved the 
prohibition : 

"The State of Virginia, which ceded to the United States 
her claims to this Territory, consented, by her delegates in 
the Old Congress, to this Ordinance. Not only Virginia, 
but North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, by the 
unanimous votes of their delegates in the Old Congress, 
approved of the Ordinance of 1787, by which Slavery is 
forever abolished in the Territory northwest of the river 
Ohio. Without the votes of these States, the Ordinance 
could not have been passed; and there is no recollection of 
an opposition from any of these States to the act of con- 
firmation passed under the actual Constitution. 

Note 7. — "The famous Ordinance of Congress of the 13th 
July, 1787, which has ever since constituted, in most respects, 
the model of all our territorial governments, and is equally 
remarkable for the brevity and exactness of its text, and 
for its masterly display of the fundamental principles of 
civil and religious liberty." — Justice Story, i Commentaries: 
§1312. 

"It is well known that the Ordinance of 1787 was drawn 
by the Hon. Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, and adopted 
with scarcely a verbal alteration by Congress. It is a noble 
and imperishable monument to his fame." — Id. note. 

The ordinance was reported by a committee, of which 
Wm. S. Johnson and Charles Pinckney were members. It 
recites that, "for extending the fundamental principles of 
civil and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon 
these republics, their laws and constitutions, are erected; 
to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, 
constitutions, and governments which forevar hereafter shall 
be formed in the said Territory; to provide also for the estab- 
lishment of States and permanent government, and for their 
admission to a share in the federal councils, on an equal 
footing with the original States, at as early periods as may 
be consistent with the general interest — 



270 Appendix 

"It is hereby ordained and declared, by the authority 
aforesaid, that the following articles shall be considered 
as articles of compact between the original States and the 
people and States in the said Territory, and forever remain 
unalterable, unless by common consent, to wit:" • • • • 

"Art. 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude in the said Territory otherwise than in the pun- 
ishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly 
convicted; provided always that any person escaping into 
the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed 
in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be law- 
fully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his 
or her labor or service." 

On passing the ordinance, the ayes and nays were required 
by Judge Yates, of New York, when it appeared that his 
was the only vote in the negative. 

The ordinance of April 23, 1784, was a brief outline of 
that of '87. It was reported by a Committee, of which 
Mr. Jefiferson was chairman, and the report contained a 
slavery prohibition intended to take effect in 1800. This 
was stricken out of the report, six States voting to retain 
it — three voting to strike out — one being divided (N. C), 
and the others not being represented. (The assent of nine 
States was necessary to retain any provision.) And this 
is the vote alluded to by Mr. Lincoln. But subsequently, 
March 16, 1785, a motion was made by Rufus King to commit 
a proposition "that there be neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude" in any of the Territories; which was carried by 
the vote of eight States, including Maryland. — Journal Am. 
Congress, vol. 4, pp. 373, 380, 481, 752. 

When, therefore, the ordinance of '87 came before Con- 
gress, on its final passage, the subject of slavery prohibition 
had been "agitated" for nearly three years; and the deliberate 
and almost unanimous vote of that body upon that question 
leaves no room to doubt what the fathers believed, and how, 
in that belief, they acted. 

Note 8. — It singularly and fortunately happens that one 
of the "thirty -nine," "while engaged on that instrument," 
viz., while advocating its ratification before the Pennsylvania 
Convention, did express an opinion upon this "precise ques- 



Notes 271 

tion," which opinion was never disputed or doubted, in that 
or any other Convention, and was accepted by the opponents 
of the Constitution, as an indisputable fact. This was the 
celebrated James Wilson, of Pennsylvania. The opinion 
is as follows : — 

Monday, Dec. 3, 1787. 

"With respect to the clause restricting Congress from 
prohibiting the migration or importation of such persons 
as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, 
prior to the year 1808: The Hon. gentleman says that this 
clause is not only dark, but intended to grant to Congress, 
for that time, the power to admit the importation of slaves. 
No such thing was intended; but I will tell you what was 
done, and it gives me high pleasure that so much was done. 
Under the present Confederation, the States may admit 
the importation of slaves as long as they please; but by 
this article, after the year 1808, the Congress will have 
power to prohibit such importation, notwithstanding the 
disposition of any State to the contrary. I consider this 
as laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of this 
country; and though the period is more distant than I could 
wish, yet it will produce the same kind, gradual change which 
was pursued in Pennsylvania. It is with much satisfaction 
that I view this power in the general government, whereby 
they may lay an interdiction on this reproachful trade. 
But an immediate advantage is also obtained; for a tax or 
duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding 
$10 for each person; and this, sir, operates as a partial pro- 
hibition; it was all that could be obtained. I am sorry it 
was no more; but from this I think there is reason to hope 
that yet a few years, and it will be prohibited altogether. 
And in the meantime, the new States which are to be formed 
will be under the control of Congress in this particular, and 
slaves will never be introduced amongst them.'' — 2 Elliott's 
Debates, 423. 

It was argued by Patrick Henry in the Convention in 
Virginia, as follows: 

"May not Congress enact that every black man must 
fight? Did we not see a little of this in the last war? We 
were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general. 



272 Appendix 

But acts of Assembly passed, that every slave who would go 
to the army should be free. Another thing will contribute to 
bring this event about. Slavery is detested. We feel its 
fatal effects. We deplore it with all the pity of humanity. 
Let all these considerations press with full force on the minds 
of Congress. Let that urbanity which, I trust, will distin- 
guish America, and the necessity of national defence — let 
all these things operate on their minds, they will search 
that paper, and see if they have power of manumission. 
And have they not, sir? Have they not power to provide 
for the general defence and welfare? May they not think 
that these call for the abolition of slavery? May they not 
pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be warranted 
by that power? There is no ambiguous implication, no 
logical deduction. The paper speaks to the point; they 
have the power in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly 
and certainly exercise it." — 3 Elliott's Debates, 534. 

Edmund Randolph, one of the framers of the Constitution, 
replied to Mr. Henry, admitting the general force of the 
argument, but claiming that, because of other provisions, 
it had no application to the States where slavery then existed ; 
thus conceding that power to exist in Congress as to all 
territory belonging to the United States. 

Dr. Ramsay, a member of the Convention of South 
Carolina, in his history of the United States, vol. 3, pages 
36, 37, says: "Under these liberal principles. Congress, in 
organizing colonies, bound themselves to impart to their 
inhabitants all the privileges of coequal States, as soon as 
they were capable of enjoying them. In their infancy, 
government was administered for them without any expense. 
As soon as they should have 60,000 inhabitants, they were 
authorized to call a convention, and, by common consent, 
to form their own constitution. This being done, they 
were entitled to representation in Congress, and every right 
attached to the original States. These privileges are not 
confined to any particular country or complexion. They 
are communicable to the emancipated slave (for in the 
new State of Ohio, slavery is altogether prohibited) , to the 
copper-colored native, and all other human beings who, 
after a competent residence and degree of civilization, 



Notes ^73 



are capable of enjoying the blessings of regular govern- 
ment." 

Note 9. — The Act of 1789, as reported by the Committee, 
was received and read Thursday, July i6th. The second 
reading was on Friday, the 1 7th, when it was committed 
to the Committee of the whole house, "on Monday next." 
On Monday, July 20th, it was considered in Committee of 
the whole, and ordered to a third reading on the following 
day; on the 21st, it passed the House, and was sent to the 
Senate. In the Senate it had its first reading on the same 
day, and was ordered to a second reading on the following 
day (July 2 2d), and on the 4th of August it passed, and 
on the 7th was approved by the President. 

Note 10. — The "sixteen" represented these States: Lang- 
don and Oilman, New Hampshire; Sherman and Johnson, 
Connecticut; Morris, Fitzsimmons, and Clymer, Pennsyl- 
vania; King, Massachusetts; Paterson, New Jersey; Few 
and Baldwin, Georgia; Bassett and Read, Delaware; Butler, 
South Carolina; Carroll, Maryland; and Madison, Virginia 

Note ii. — Vide note 3, ante. 

Note 12. — Chap. 28, § 7, U. S. Statutes, 5th Congress, 
2d Session. 

Note 13. — Langdon was from New Hampshire, Read from 
Delaware, and Baldwin from Georgia. 

Note 14. — Chap. 38, § 10, U. S. Statutes, 8th Congress, 
I St Session. 

Note 15. — Baldwin was from Georgia, and Dayton from 
New Jersey. 

Note 16. — Rufus King, who sat in the old Congress, and 
also in the Convention, as the representative of Massa- 
chusetts, removed to New York and was sent by that State 
to the U. S. Senate of the first Congress. Charles Pinckney 
was in the House, as a representative of South Carolina. 

Note 17. — Although Mr. Pinckney opposed "slavery 
prohibition" in 1820, yet his views, with regard to the powers 
of the general government, may be better judged by his 
actions in the Convention: 

Friday, June 8th, 1787. — "Mr. Pinckney moved 'that 
the National Legislature shall have the power of negativing 



274 Appendix 

all laws to be passed by the State Legislatures, which they 
may judge improper,' in the room of the clause as it stood 
reported. 

"He grounds his motion on the necessity of one supreme 
controlling power, and he considers this as the corner-stone 
of the present system; and hence the necessity of retrenching 
the State authorities, in order to preserve the good govern- 
ment of the national council." — T. 400, Elliott's Debates. 

And again, Thursday, August 23c?, 1787, Mr. Pinckney 
renewed the motion with some modifications. — ^T. 1409. 
Madison Papers. 

And although Mr. Pinckney, as correctly stated by Mr. 
Lincoln, "steadily voted against slavery prohibition, and 
against all compromises," he still regarded the passage of 
the Missouri Compromise as a great triumph of the South, 
which is apparent from the following letter: 

Congress Hall, March 2d, 1820, 3 o'clock at night. 

Dear Sir: — I hasten to inform you, that this moment 
WE have carried the question to admit Missouri, and all 
Louisiana to the southward of 36° 30', free from the restric- 
tion of slavery, and give the South, in a short time, an 
addition of six, perhaps eight, members to the Senate of 
the United States. It is considered here by the slaveholding 
States as a great triumph. 

The votes were close — ninety to eighty-six — ^produced by 
the seceding and absence of a few moderate men from the 
North. To the north of 36° 30,' there is to be, by the present 
law, restriction; which you will see by the votes, I voted 
against. But it is at present of no moment; it is a vast 
tract, uninhabited, only by savages and wild beasts, in 
which not a foot of the Indian claims to soil is extinguished, 
and in which, according to the ideas prevalent, no land of- 
fice will be opened for a great length of time. 

With respect, your obedient servant, 

Charles Pinckney. 

But conclusive evidence of Mr. Pinckney 's views is fur- 
nished in the fact that he was himself a member of the Com- 
mittee which reported the Ordinance of '87, and that on every 
occasion, when it was under the consideration of Congress, he 
voted against all amendments. — four. Am. Congress, Sept. 29th, 



Notes 275 

1786. Oct. 4th. When the ordinance came up for its final 
passage, Mr. Pinckney was sitting in the Convention, and 
did not take any part in the proceedings of Congress. 

Note 18. — By reference to notes 4, 6, lo, 13, 15, and 16 
it will be seen that, of the twenty-three who acted upon 
the question of prohibition, twelve were from the present 
slaveholding States. 

Note 19. — Vide notes 5 and 17, ante. 

Note 20. — "The remaining sixteen" were Nathaniel Gor- 
ham, Massachusetts; Alex. Hamilton, New York; William 
Livingston and David Brearly, New Jersey ; Benjamin Frank- 
lin, Jared IngersoU, James Wilson, and Gouverneur Morris, 
Pennsylvania; Gunning Bedford, John Dickinson, and Jacob 
Broom, Delaware; Daniel, of St. Thomas, Jenifer, Maryland; 
John Blair, Virginia ; Richard Dobbs Spaight, North Carolina ; 
and John Rutledge and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, South 
Carolina. 

Note 21. — "The only distinction between freedom and 
slavery consists in this: in the former state, a man is gov- 
erned by the laws to which he has given his consent, either 
in person or by his representative; in the latter, he is gov- 
erned by the will of another. In the one case, his life and 
property are his own; in the other, they depend upon the 
pleasure of a master. It is easy to discern which of the 
two states is preferable. No man in his senses can hesitate 
in choosing to be free rather than slave. . . . Were not 
the disadvantages of slavery too obvious to stand in need 
of it, I might enumerate and describe the tedious train of 
calamities inseparable from it. I might show that it is 
fatal to religion and morality; that it tends to debase the 
mind, and corrupt its noblest springs of action. I might 
show that it relaxes the sinews of industry and clips the 
wings of commerce, and works misery and indigence in 
every shape." — Hamilton, Works, vol. 2, pp. 3, 9. 

"That you will be pleased to countenance the restoration 
of liberty to those unhappy men, who, alone in this land of 
freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, 
amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning 
in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removnng 



276 Appendix 

this inconsistency from the character of the American people; 
that you will promote mercy and justice toward this dis- 
tressed race; and that you will step to the very verge of the 
power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic 
in the persons of our fellow-men." — Philadelphia, Feb. 3rd, 
1790. Franklin's Petition to Congress for the Abolition of 
Slavery. 

Mr. Gouvemeur Morris said: "He never would concur 
in upholding domestic slavery. It was a notorious insti- 
tution. It was the curse of heaven on the States where 
it prevailed. . . . The admission of slavery into the repre- 
sentation, when fairly explained, comes to this — that the 
inhabitant of South Carolina or Georgia, who goes to the 
coast of Africa, and, in defiance of the most sacred laws 
of humanity, tears away his fellow-creatures from their 
dearest connections, and damns them to the most cruel 
bondage, shall have more votes, in a government instituted 
for the protection of the rights of mankind, than the citizen 
of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, who views with a laudable 
horror so notorious a practice. . . . He would sooner sub- 
mit himself to a tax for paying for all the negroes in the 
United States than saddle posterity with such a constitu- 
tion." — Debate on Slave Representation in the Convention. 
Madison Papers. 

Note 22. — An eminent jurist (Chancellor Walworth) has 
said that "The preamble which was prefixed to these 
amendments, as adopted by Congress, is important to show 
in what light that body considered them." (8 Wend. R., 
p. 100.) It declares that a number of the State Conventions 
"having at the time of their adopting the Constitution 
expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or 
abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive 
clauses should be added," resolved, etc. 

This preamble is in substance the preamble affixed to the 
"Conciliatory Resolutions" of Massachusetts, which were 
drawn by Chief Justice Parsons, and offered in the Conven- 
tion as a compromise by John Hancock. (Life Ch. J. Parsons, 
p. 67.) They were afterward copied and adopted with some 
additions by New Hampshire. 

The fifth amendment, on which the Supreme Court relies, 



Notes 277 

is taken almost literally from the declaration of rights put 
forth by the Convention of New York, and the clause referred 
to forms the ninth paragraph of the declaration. The tenth 
amendment, on which Senator Douglas relies, is taken from 
the Conciliatory Resolutions, and is the first of those reso- 
lutions somewhat modified. Thus, these two amendments, 
sought to be used for slavery, originated in the two great 
anti-slavery States, New York and Massachusetts. 

Note 2 3 . — The amendments were proposed by Mr. Madison 
in the House of Representatives, June 8, 1789. They were 
adopted by the House, August 24, and some further amend- 
ments seem to have been transmitted by the Senate, Sep- 
tember 9. The printed journals of the Senate do not state 
the time of the final passage, and the message transmitting 
them to the State Legislatures speaks of them as adopted 
at the first session, begun on the fourth day of March, 1789. 
The date of the introduction and passage of the act enforcing 
the Ordinance of '87 will be found at note 9, ante. 

Note 24. — It is singular that while two of the "thirty- 
nine" were in that Congress of 181 9, there was but one 
(besides Mr. King) of the "seventy-six." The one was 
William Smith, of South Carolina. He was then a Senator, 
and, like Mr. Pinckney, occupied extreme Southern ground. 

Note 25. — ^The following is an extract from the letter 
referred to: 

' ' I agree with you cordially in your views in regard to 
negro slavery. I have long considered it a most serious 
evil, both socially and politically, and I should rejoice in 
any feasible scheme to rid our States of such a burden. 
The Congress of 1787 adopted an ordinance which prohibits 
the existence of involuntary servitude in our Northwestern 
Territory forever. I consider it a wise measure. It meets 
with the approval and assent of nearly every member from 
the States more immediately interested in slave labor. The 
prevailing opinion in Virginia is against the spread of slavery 
in our new Territories, and I trust we shall have a confed- 
eration of free States." 

The following extract from a letter of Washington to 
Robert Morris, April, 12th, 1786, shows how strong were 
his views, and how clearly he deemed emancipation a 



278 Appendix 

subject for legislative enactment: "I can only say that there 
is no man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to 
see a plan adopted for the abolition of it; but there is but 
one proper and effective mode by which it can be accom- 
plished, and that is, by legislative authority, and that, 
as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting." 

Note 26. — A Committee of five, consisting of Messrs. 
Mason, Davis, and Fitch (Democrats), and Collamer and 
Doolittle (Republicans), was appointed Dec. 14, 1859, by 
the U. S. Senate, to investigate the Harper's Ferry affair. 
That Committee was directed, among other things, to in- 
quire: (i) "Whether such invasion and seizure was made 
under color of any organization intended to subvert the 
government of any of the States of the Union." (2) "What 
was the character and extent of such organisation." (3) 
And whether any citizens of the United States, not present, 
were implicated therein, or accessory thereto, by contributions 
of money, arms, munitions, or otherwise." 

The majority of the Committee, Messrs. Mason, Davis, 
and Fitch, reply to the inquiries as follows: 

1. "There will be found in the Appendix a copy of 
the proceedings of a Convention held at Chatham, Can- 
ada, of the Provisional Form of Government there pretended 
to have been instituted, the object of which clearly was 
to subvert the government of one or more States, and 
of course, to that extent, the government of the United 
States." By reference to the copy of Proceedings it appears 
that nineteen persons were present at that Convention, eight 
of whom were either killed or executed at Charlestown, and 
one examined before the Committee. 

2. "The character of the military organization appears, 
by the commissions issued to certain of the armed party 
as captains, lieutenants, etc., a specimen of which will be 
found in the Appendix." 

(These Commissions are signed by John Brown as Com- 
mander-in-Chief, under the Provisional Government, and 
by J. H. Kagi as Secretary.) 

"It clearly appeared that the scheme of Brown was to 
take with him comparatively but few men; but those had 
been carefully trained by military instruction previously, 



Notes 279 

and were to act as officers. For his military force he 
relied, very clearly, on inciting insurrection amongst the 
Slaves." 

3. "It does not appear that the contributions were made 
with actual knowledge of the use for which they were 
designed by Brown, although it dces appear that money 
was freely contributed by those styling themselves the 
friends of this man Brown, and friends alike of what they 
styled the cause of freedom (of which they claimed him 
to be an especial apostle), without inquiring as to the 
way in which the money would be used by him to advance 
such pretended cause." 

In concluding the report the majority of the Committee 
thus characterize the "invasion": "It was simply the act 
of lawless ruffians, under the sanction of no public or 
political authority — distinguishable only from ordinary 
felonies by the ulterior ends in contemplation by them," etc. 

Note 27. — The Southampton insurrection, August, 1831, 
was induced by the remarkable ability of a slave calling 
himself General Nat Turner. He led his fellow bondsmen 
to believe that he was acting under the order of Heaven. 
In proof of this he alleged that the singular appearance 
of the sun at that time was a divine signal for the com- 
mencement of the struggle which would result in the recovery 
of their freedom. This insurrection resulted in the death 
of sixty-four white persons, and more than one hundred 
slaves. The Southampton was the eleventh large insur- 
rection in the Southern States, besides numerous attempts 
and revolts. 

Note 28. — In March, 1790, the General Assembly of 
France, on the petition of the free people of color in St. 
Domingo, many of whom were intelligent and wealthy, 
passed a decree intended to be in their favor, but so am- 
biguous as to be construed in favor of both the whites and 
the blacks. The differences growing out of the decree 
created two parties — the whites and the people of color; 
and some blood was shed. In 1791, the blacks again peti- 
tioned, and a decree was passed declaring the colored people 
citizens, who were born of free parents on both sides. This 
produced great excitement among the whites, and the two 



28o Appendix 

parties armed against each other, and horrible massacres 
and conflagrations followed. Then the Assembly rescinded 
this last decree, and like results followed, the blacks being 
the exasperated parties and the aggressors. Then the decree 
giving citizenship to the blacks was restored, and commis- 
sioners were sent out to keep the peace. The commissioners, 
unable to sustain themselves, between the two parties, with 
the troops they had, issued a proclamation that all blacks 
who were willing to range themselves under the banner of 
the Republic should be free. As a result a very large pro- 
portion of the blacks became in fact free. In 1794, the 
Conventional Assembly abolished slavery throughout the 
French Colonies. Some years afterward, the French Gov- 
ernment sought, with an army of 60,000 men, to reinstate 
slavery, but were unsuccessful, and then the white planters 
were driven from the Island. 

Note 29. — Vicle Jefferson's Autobiography, commenced 
January 6th, 1821. Jefferson's Works, vol. i, p. 49. 

Note 30. — "I am not ashamed or afraid publicly to avow 
that the election of William H. Seward or Salmon P. Chase, 
or any such representative of the Republican party, upon 
a sectional platform, ought to be resisted to the disruption 
of every tie that binds this Confederacy together. (Ap- 
plause on the Democratic side of the House.) " Mr. Curry, 
of Alabama, in the House of Representatives. 

"Just so sure as the Republican party succeed in electing 
a sectional man, upon their sectional, anti-slavery platform, 
breathing destruction and death to the rights of my people, 
just so sure, in my judgment, the time will have come 
when the South must and will take an unmistakable and 
decided action, and then he who dallies is a dastard, and 
he who doubts is damned! I need not tell what I, a South- 
ern man, will do. I think I may safely speak for the masses 
of the people of Georgia — that when that event happens, 
they, in my judgment, will consider it an overt act, a 
declaration of war, and meet immediately in convention, 
to take into consideration the mode and measure of redress. 
That is my position; and if that be treason to the Govern- 
ment, make the most of it." — Mr. Gartell, of Georgia, in 
the House of Representatives. 



I 



Notes 281 

" I said to my constituents, and to the people of the capital 
of my State, on my way here, if such an event did occur," 
[t. e., the election of a Republican President, upon a Repub- 
lican platform], "while it would be their duty to determine 
the course which the State would pursue, it would be my 
privilege to counsel with them as to what I believed to be 
the proper course; and I said to them, what I say now, and 
what I will always say in such an event, that my counsel 
would be to take independence out of the Union in pre- 
ference to the loss of constitutional rights, and consequent 
degradation and dishonor, in it. That is my position, and 
it is the position which I know the Democratic party of 
the State of Mississippi will maintain." — Gov. McRae, of 
Mississippi. 

"It is useless to attempt to conceal the fact that, in the 
present temper of the Southern people, it" {i. e., the election 
of a Republican President] "cannot be, and will not be, 
submitted to. The 'irrepressible conflict' doctrine, an- 
nounced and advocated by the ablest and most distinguished 
leader of the Republican party, is an open declaration of 
war against the institution of slavery, wherever it exists; 
and I would be disloyal to Virginia and the South, if I 
did not declare that the election of such a man, entertaining 
such sentiment, and advocating such doctrines, ought to be 
resisted by the slaveholding States. The idea of permitting 
such a man to have the control and direction of the army 
and navy of the United States, and the appointment of 
high judicial and executive officers, postmasters included, 
cannot be entertained by the South for a moment." — Gov. 
Letcher, of Virginia. 

"Slavery must be maintained — in the Union, if possible; 
out of it, if necessary: peaceably if we may; forcibly if 
we must." — Senator Iverson, of Georgia. 

"Lincoln and Hamlin, the Black Republican nominees, 
will be elected in November next, and the South will then 
decide the great question whether they will submit to the 
domination of Black Republican rule — the fundamental 
principle of their organization being an open, undisguised, 
and declared war upon our social institutions. I believe 
that the honor and safety of the South, in that contingency, 



282 Appendix 

will require the prompt secession of the slaveholding States 
from the Union; and failing then to obtain from the free 
States additional and higher guaranties for the protection 
of our rights and property, that the seceding States should 
proceed to establish a new government. But while I think 
such would be the imperative duty of the South, I should 
emphatically reprobate and repudiate any scheme having 
for its object the separate secession of South Carolina. If 
Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi alone — giving us a por- 
tion of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts — would unite with this 
State in a common secession upon the election of a Black 
Republican, I would give my consent to the policy." — Letter 
of Hon. James L. Orr, of S. C, to John Martin and others, 
July 23, i860. 

Note 31. — The Hon. John A. Andrew, of the Boston Bar, 
made the following analysis of the Dred Scott case in the 
Massachusetts Legislature. Hon. Caleb Gushing was then 
a member of that body, but did not question its correctness. 

"On the question of possibility of citizenship to one of 
the Dred Scott color, extraction, and origin, three Justices, 
viz., Taney, Wayne, and Daniels, held the negative. Nelson 
and Campbell passed over the plea by which the question 
was raised. Grier agreed with Nelson. Catron said the 
question was not open. McLean agreed with Catron, but 
thought the plea bad. Curtis agreed that the question was 
open, but attacked the plea, met its averments, and decided 
that a free-bom colored person, native to any State, is a 
citizen thereof by birth, and is therefore a citizen of the 
Union, and entitled to sue in the Federal Courts. 

"Had a majority of the court directly sustained the plea 
in abatement, and denied the jurisdiction of the Circuit 
Court appealed from, then all else they could have said and 
done would have been done and said in a cause not theirs 
to try and not theirs to discuss. In the absence of such a 
majority, one step more was to be taken. And the next 
step reveals an agreement of six of the Justices, on a point 
decisive of the cause, and putting an end to all the functions 
of the court. 

"It is this. Scott was first carried to Rock Island, in 
the State of Illinois, where he remained about two years, 



Notes 283 

before going with his master to Fort Snelling, in the Territory 
of Wisconsin. His claim to freedom was rested on the 
alleged effect of his translation from a slave State, and 
again into a free territory. If, by his removal to Illinois, 
he became emancipated from his master, the subsequent 
continuance of his pilgrimage into the Louisiana purchase 
could not add to his freedom, nor alter the fact. If, by 
reason of any want or infirmity in the laws of Illinois, or 
of conformity on his part to their behests, Dred Scott re- 
mained a slave while he remained in that State, then — for 
the sake of learning the effect on him of his territorial resi- 
dence beyond the Mississippi, and of his marriage and other 
proceedings there, and the effect of the sojournment and 
marriage of Harriet, in the same territory, upon herself and 
her children — it might become needful to advance one other 
step into the investigation of the law; to inspect the Missouri 
Compromise, banishing slavery to the south of the line of 
36° 30' in the Louisiana purchase. 

"But no exigency of the cause ever demanded or justified 
that advance; for six of the Justices, including the Chief 
Justice himself, decided that the status of the plaintiff, as 
free or slave, was dependent, not upon the laws of the State 
in which he had been, but of the State of Missouri, in which 
he was at the commencement of the suit. The Chief Justice 
asserted that 'it is now firmly settled by the decisions of 
the highest court in the State, that Scott and his family, 
on their return were not free, but were, by the laws of Mis- 
souri, the property of the defendant.' This was the burden 
of the opinion of Nelson, who declares 'the question is one 
solely depending upon the law of Missouri, and that the 
Federal Court, sitting in the State, and trying the case 
before us, was bound to follow it.' It received the em- 
phatic endorsement of Wayne, whose general concurrence 
was with the Chief Justice. Grier concurred in set terms 
with Nelson on all 'the questions discussed by him.' Camp- 
bell says, 'The claim of the plaintiff to freedom depends 
upon the effect to be given to his absence from Missouri, 
in company with his master in Illinois and Minnesota, and 
this effect is to be ascertained by reference to the laws of Missouri.' 
Five of the Justices, then (if no more of them), regard the 
law of Missouri as decisive of the plaintiff's rights." 



284 Appendix 

Note 32. — "Now, as we have already said in an eaTlicr 
part of this opinion upon a different point, the right of 
property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed 
in the Constitution. The right to traffic in it, like an ordi- 
nary article of merchandise and property, was guaranteed 
to the citizens of the United States in every State that 
might desire it, for twenty years." — Ch. J. Taney, 19 How. 
U. S. R., p. 451. Vide language of Mr. Madison, note 34 
as to "tnerchandise." 

Note 23- — Not only was the right of property not intended 
to be "distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution " ; 
but the following extract from Mr. Madison demonstrates 
that the utmost care was taken to avoid so doing: 

"The clause as originally offered [respecting fugitive 
slaves] read, 'If any person legally bound to service or 
labor in any of the United States shall escape into another 
State," etc., etc. (Vol. 3, p. 1456.) In regard to this, Mr. 
Madison says, "The term 'legally' was struck out, and the 
words 'under the laws thereof,' inserted after the word 
State, in compliance with the wish of some who thought 
the term 'legally' equivocal and favoring the idea that 
slavery was legal in a moral point of view." — lb., p. 1589. 

Note 34. — We subjoin a portion of the history alluded 
to by Mr. Lincoln. The following extract relates to the 
provision of the Constitution relative to the slave trade. 
(Article I, Sec. 9.) 

2$th August, 1787. — The report of the Committee of eleven 
being taken up, Gen. [Charles Cotesworth] Pinckney moved 
to strike out the words "the year 1800," and insert the words 
"the year 1808." 

Mr. Gorham seconded the motion. 

Mr. Madison — Twenty years will produce all the mischief 
that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. 
So long a term will be more dishonorable to the American 
character than to say nothing about it in the Constitution. 

H< :{< H^ H: % :}: 

Mr. Gouverneur Morris was for making the clause read 
at once — 

"The importation of slaves into North Carolina, South 
Carolina, and Georgia, shall not be prohibited," etc. 



Notes 285 

This, he said, would be most fair, and would avoid the 
ambiguity by which, under the power with regard to natural- 
ization, the Uberty reserved to the States might be defeated. 
He wished it to be known, also, that this part of the Con- 
stitution was a compliance with those States. If the change 
of language, however, should be objected to by the members 
from those States, he should not urge it. 

Col. Mason (of Virginia) was not against using the term 
"slaves," but against naming North Carolina, South Caro- 
lina, and Georgia, lest it should give offence to the people 
of those States. 

Mr. Sherman liked a description better than the terms 
proposed, which had been declined by the old Congress 
and were not pleasing to some people. 

Mr. Clymer concurred with Mr. Sherman. 

Mr. Williamson, of North Carolina, said that both in opinion 
and practice he was against slavery; but thought it more in 
favor of humanity, from a view of all circumstances, to let 
in South Carolina and Georgia, on those terms, than to exclude 
them, from the Union. 

Mr. Morris withdrew his motion. 

Mr. Dickinson wished the clause to be confined to the 
States which had not themselves prohibited the importation 
of slaves, and for that purpose moved to amend the clause 
BO as to read — 

"The importation of slaves into such of the States as 
shall permit the same, shall not be prohibited by the Legis- 
lat\ire of the United States, until the year 1808," which 
was disagreed to, nem. con. 

The first part of the report was then agreed to as follows : 

"The migration or importation of such persons as the 
several States now existing shall think proper to admit, 
shall not be prohibited by the Legislature prior to the year 
1808." 

Mr. Sherman was against the second part ["but a tax 
or duty may be imposed on such migration or importation 
at a rate not exceeding the average of the duties laid on im- 
ports"], as acknowledging men to be property by taxing 
them as such under the character of slaves. 



286 Appendix 

Mr. Madison thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution 
the idea thai there could be property in men. The reason of 
duties did not hold, as slaves are not, like merchandise, 
consumed. 

4c 4c 4c :)c Hi * 

It was finally agreed, nem. con., to make the clause read — 

"But a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, 
not exceeding ten dollars for each person." — Madison 
Papers, Aug. 25, 1787. 

Note 35. — Compare this noble passage and that at page 18, 
with the twaddle of Mr. Orr (note 30), and the slang of 
Mr. Douglas (note 37). 

Note 36. — That demand has since been made. Says 
Mr. O 'Con or, counsel for the State of Virginia in the Lemon 
Case, page 44 : "We claim that under these various provisions 
of the Federal Constitution, a citizen of Virginia has an 
immunity against the operation of any law which the 
State of New York can enact, whilst he is a stranger and 
wayfarer, or whilst passing through our territory; and 
that he has absolute protection for all his domestic rights, 
and for all his rights of property, which under the laws 
of the United States, and the laws of his own State, he 
was entitled to, whilst in his own State. We claim this, 
and neither more nor less." 

Throughout the whole of that case, in which the right 
to pass through New York with slaves at the pleasure of 
the slave owners is maintained, it is nowhere contended 
that the statute is contrary to the Constitution of New 
York; but that the statute and the Constitution of the 
State are both contrary to the Constitution of the United 
States. 

The State of Virginia, not content with the decision of 
our own courts upon the right claimed by them, is now 
engaged in carrying this, the Lemon case, to the Supreme 
Court of the United States, hoping by a decision there, 
in accordance with the intimations in the Dred Scott case, 
to overthrow the Constitution of New York. 

Senator Toombs, of Georgia, has claimed, in the Senate, 
that laws of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, 
New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, 



Notes 287 

for the exclusion of slavery, conceded to be warranted by 
the State Constitutions, are contrary to the Constitution 
of the United States, and has asked for the enactment of 
laws by the General Government which shall override the 
laws of those States and the Constitutions which authorize 
them. 

Note 37. — "Policy, humanity, and Christianity, alike 
forbid the extension of the evils of free society to new people 
and coming generations." — Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 22, 1856. 

" I am satisfied that the mind of the South has undergone 
a change to this great extent, that it is now the almost 
universal belief in the South, not only that the condition 
of African slavery in their midst, is the best condition 
to which the African race has ever been subjected, but 
that it has the effect of ennobling both races, the white and 
the black." — Senator Mason, of Virginia. 

"I declare again, as I did in reply to the Senator from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Doolittle), that, in my opinion, slavery is 
a great moral, social, and political blessing — a blessing to 
the slave, and a blessing to the master." — Mr. Brown, in 
the Senate, March 6, i860. 

"I am a Southern States' Rights man; I am an African 
slave-trader. I am one of those Southern men who believe 
that slavery is right — morally, religiously, socially, and 
politically." (Applause.) ... "I represent the African 
Slave-trade interests of that section. (Applause.) I am 
proud of the position I occupy in that respect. I believe 
the African Slave-trader is a true missionary and a true 
Christian." (Applause.) — Mr. Gaulden, a delegate from First 
Congressional District of Georgia, in the Charleston Convention, 
now a supporter of Mr. Douglas. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, I would gladly speak again, but 
you see from the tones of my voice that I am unable to. 
This has been a happy, a glorious day. I shall never forget 
it. There is a charm about this beautiful day, about this 
sea air, and especially about that peculiar institution of 
yours — a clam bake. I think you have the advantage, 
in that respect, of Southerners. For my own part, I 
have much more fondness for your clams than I have 
for their niggers. But every man to his taste." — Hon. 



Appendix 



Stephen A. Douglas's Address at Rocky Point, R. /., Aug. 
2, i860. 

Note 38. — It is interesting to observe how two profoundly 
logical minds, though holding extreme, opposite views, have 
deduced this common conclusion. Says Mr. O'Conor, the 
eminent leader of the New York Bar, and the counsel for 
the State of Virginia in the Lemon case, in his speech at 
Cooper Institute, December 19th, 1859: 

"That is the point to which this great argument must 
come — Is negro slavery unjust? If it is unjust, it violates 
that first rule of human conduct — 'Render to every man 
his due.' If it is unjust, it violates the law of God 
which says, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' for that requires 
that we should perpetrate no injustice. Gentlemen, if it 
could be maintained that negro slavery was unjust, perhaps 
I might be prepared — perhaps we all ought to be prepared — 
to go with that distinguished man to whom allusion is 
frequently made, and say, 'There is a higher law which com- 
pels us to trample beneath our feet the Constitution estab- 
lished by our fathers, with all the blessings it secures to 
their children.' But I insist — and that is the argument 
which we must meet, and on which we must come to a 
conclusion that shall govern our actions in the future selec- 
tion of representatives in the Congress of the United States — 
I insist that negro slavery is not unjust." 



INDEX 



Andersonville, responsibility 

for, 190 
Andrew, John A., 105 
Antietam, battle of, 115 
Appomattox, the surrender 

at, 177 ff. 
Atlanta, capture of, 151 



B 



Bahamas, trade of the, with 

the Confederacy, 167 flf. 
Banks, General N. P., 103 
Bazaine, General, in com- 
mand of French array in 
Mexico, 156 
Belle Isle, the prison of, 189 
Bentonville, battle of, 183 
Bixby, Mrs., letter to, from 

Lincoln, 152 
"Black Republicans," the, 

250 
Blair, Frank P., difficulties 

with, 161 
Blount, William, 237 
Border States, the, and eman- 
cipation, 1 14 ff. 
Bragg, Gen. Braxton, 136 flf. 
Brainerd, Cephas, on the 
Cooper Union address, 211 
Brown, John, raid of, 254 
Bryant on Lincoln, 202 
Buckner, Gen. S. B., 99 
Bull Run, second battle of, 

122 
Burnside, Gen. Ambrose F., 
and the Army of the Poto- 
mac, 127; and the defence 
of Knoxville, 137 



Butler, Benjamin F., 103, 120 



Cabinet, cabals in the, 160 

Cedar Creek, the battle of, 
150 ff. 

Chancellorsville, battle of, 
129 

Charleston, evacuation of, 
169 

Chase, Salmon P., and the 
Presidential election of 
1864, 154; resignation of, 
154; appointed chief jus- 
tice, 155; efforts of , for the 
Presidency, 157; difficulties 
with, in the Cabinet, 161 

Chickamauga, battle of, 136 

Clay, Cassius M., 223 

Congress and slavery in the 
Territories, 246 ff. 

Constitution, the 1 3th amend- 
ment to, 163 ff. ; defined by 
Lincoln, 236 ff.; and prop- 
erty in slaves, 260 ff. 

"Crocker, Master," 113 

Curtin, Gov. A. G., 105 

Cvurtis, Gen. S. R., 108 



D 



Danville, the prison of, 147, 
i8g ff.; mortality in, 159 

Davis, Jefferson, and Benj. 
F. Butler, 120; and the 
Peace Conference of Feb., 
1865, 163; capture of, 187: 
and the other leaders of 
the South, 189; and the 
management of the South- 



290 



Index 



Davis, Jefferson — Continued 
ern prisons, 190 fif; as a 
prisoner and martyr, 191 

Douglas, Stephen A., and the 
debate with Lincoln, cited, 
235; and the sedition act, 
263; and the Dred Scott 
decision, 246 

Dred Scott case, the, 246 



E 



Early, Jubal A., raid of on 
Washington, 142 ff.; and 
the battle of Winchester, 
149; and the battle of Ce- 
dar Creek, 150 

Elliott, Charles W., 213 

Emancipation Proclamation, 
the, 1 15 ff. 

Enfield rifles, use of, by Con- 
federates, 146 



Farragut, Admiral D. G., iii 
Few, William, 237 
Fisher, Fort, capture of, 167 
Fitzsimmons, Thomas, 238 
Floyd, General John B., 99 
Franklin, battle of, 151 ff. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 245 

G 

Georgia, cession of territory 

by, 239 

Gettysburg, campaign of, 
132 ff. 

Goldsborough, surrender of 
Johnston's army at, 183 

Goodell, Dr. Wm., 212 

Grant, Gen. U. S., captures 
Fort Donelson, 99; and the 
Vicksburg campaign, 134; 
and the Chattanooga cam- 
paign, 136; commander of 
the armies, 137 ff.; sug- 
gested for the Presidency, 
157; declines to consider 
terms of peace, 171; at 



Appomattox, 177 flf.; at 
Goldsborough, 184 ff. 

Greeley, Horace, 105 

Greene, Frank V., on Lin- 
coln, 106 

H 

Halleck, Gen. H. W., 103 
Hallowell, Col. Norwood, 116 
Hamilton, Alexander, 245 
Hancock, Gen. W. S., 127 
Harper's Ferry, 124; John 

Brown's raid at, 254 
Helper, H. R., the "Impend- 
ing Crisis" of, 258 
Hewitt, Abram S., 99 ff. 
Higginson, Col. T. W., 116 
Hood, Gen. John B., 151 ff. 
Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 107, 
127, 130 ff., 137 



Intervention of France and 
England threatened, 122 



Jefferson, Thomas, on emanci- 
pation, 257 

Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., 
138, 151, 169, 183 fif. 

K 

King, Rufus, 241 
Knoxville, siege of, 137 



Lee, Gen. Robert E. and the 
Antietam campaign, 122; 
and the campaign of Get- 
tysburg, 130 ff.; and the 
defence of Virgina, 137 ff.; 
proposes treaty of peace, 
171; defeated, at Five 
Forks, 171; at Appomat- 
tox, 171 



Index 



291 



I,ibby prison, Presidential 
election in, 158; mortality 
in, 159; record of, 189 flf. 

Lincoln, Abraham, and Hew- 
itt, A. S., 100 flf.; writes 
to "Master Crocker," 113; 
as commander-in-chief , 103 
ff . ; and the death penalty 
for soldiers, 119; cam- 
paign methods of McClel- 
lan, 125 flf.; letter of, ap- 
pointing Hooker, 128; to 
Grant on the fall of Vicks- 
burg, 134; address of, at 
Gettysburg, 134; letter of, 
to Mrs. Bixby, 152; re- 
election of, as President, 
157; and the exchange of 
prisoners, 158 ff.; and the 
control of the administra- 
tion, 160; and the Peace 
Conference of Feb., 1865, 
1 62 ff . ; second inaugural of, 
169 ff.; last public address 
of, 178; death of, 181; 
and the proposed cap- 
ture of Jefferson Davis, 1 88 ; 
death of, reported to the 
army at Goldsborough, 
190; comparison of, with 
Washington and Jackson, 
195 ff.; Cooper Union ad- 
dress of, 205 ff.; writes to 
Nott, 225 ff. 

Lincoln, Robert, on the 
Cooper Union address, 209 

Longstreet, Gen. James, 133, 

137 
Lookout Mountain, battle of, 

137 
Louisiana, purchase of, 240 
Lowell on Lincoln, 202 

M 

Maximilian, Prince, and the 
invasion of Mexico, 156 

McClellan, Gen. George B., 
102 ff.; and the Antietam 
campaign, 122 ff.; ordered 
to report to New Jersey, 126 



Meade, Gen. Geo. G., 127, 131 
Mifflin, Thomas, 237 
Milliken's Bend, battle of , 1 1 8 
Minnesota, troops from, 165; 

university of, 167 
Missionary Ridge, battle of, 

, .137 

Mississippi, organisation of 

the Territory of, 240 
Missouri, Admission of, 241 
Missouri Compromise, the, 

31,38 
Monocacy Creek, battle of, 

143 
Morgan, Gen. John, 177 
Morris, Gouverneur, 245 

N 

Napoleon, Louis, and the in- 
vasion of Mexico, 156 

Nashville, battle of, 151 ff. 

Nation, the London, on the 
character of Lincoln, 198 ff . 

New Orleans, capture of, 1 1 1 
ff. 

Nineteenth Army Corps and 
Early's raid, 145 

North Carolina, cession of 
territory by, 239 

Northwestern Territory, the, 
of the U. S., 237 

Nott, Chas. C, introduc- 
tion to the Cooper Union 
address, 215 ff.; letter of, 
to Lincoln, 224 ff. 

Noyes, Wm. Curtis, 212 

O 

Ordinance of 1787, 238 ff. 
P 

Pea Ridge, battle of, 108 
Peace Conference of Feb., 

1865, 162 
Pickett, Gen. G. E., 133 
Pinckney, Charles, 241 ff. 
Pope, Gen. John, 103, 122 
Port Hudson, surrender of, 



292 



Index 



Presidential election in Libby 

prison, 158 
Prisoners, the exchange of, 

158 
Putnam, George Palmer, and 
the Cooper Union address. 



R 

Reagan, Postmaster-general, 

at Goldsborough, 184 
Reconstruction, Lincoln's 

views on, 180 ff. 
Republican party, the, and 

slavery in the Territories, 

249 flf. 
Republican Union, the Young 

Men's, 223, 232 
Reynolds, Gen. J. T., 127 
Rosecrans, Gen. Wm. S., and 

the Chattanooga campaign, 

136 
Rutledge, John, 245 



Schechter, Rabbi, on the 
character of Lincoln, 200 

Schofield, Gen. Geo. W., 152 

Schurz, Carl, on the character 
of Lincoln, 201 

Seward, W. H., 64, 160 

Sharp's breech-loaders intro- 
duced in 1864, 146 

Shaw, Col. R. G., 116 

Shenandoah, campaign in 
the valley of the, 149 

Sheridan, Gen. Philip, in the 
Shenandoah, 149 ff.; wins 
battle of Five Forks, 171 

Sherman, Roger, 237 

Sherman, Gen. Wm. T., at 
Missionary Ridge, 137 ; cap- 
tures Atlanta, 151; and the 
Georgia planter, 164; passes 
by Charleston, 169; at 
Goldsborough, 183 ff. 

Sigel, Gen. Franz, 108 



Smith, Gen. Kirby, surrender 

of, 191 
Soldiers authorised to vote in 

presidential election, 152 
Southampton, insurrection 

at, 256 
South Mountain, battle of 

the, 124 
Stanton, Edwin, M., 65, 10 1 

ff., 185 
Stephens, Alexander H., and 

the Peace Conference of 

Feb., 1865, 162 ff. 
Sumter, Fort, restoration of 

the flag on, 182 



Taylor, Gen. Richard, sur- 
render of, 191 
Thomas, Gen. Geo. H., 136 



Vicksburg, surrender of, 112, 
134 

W 

Wallace, Gen. Lew, 143 
Washington assailed by 

Early, 142 ff. 
Washington, George, and the 

Ordinance of 1787, 239; 

Farewell Address of, 252; 

the example of, 266 
Weitzel, Gen. Godfrey, 119 
Whittier on Lincoln, 201 
Wilderness, battle of the, 

140 ff. 
Williamson, Hugh, 237 
Wilmington, capture of, 167 
Winchester, third battle of, 

149 
Winder, Gen., and the man- 
agement of the Southern 

prisons, 190 
Wisconsin, troops from, 165 
Wisewell, Col. F. H., 144 ff. 



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